... about half of which are skipped by most big companies.
Microsoft admits Vista failure
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And Vista vs. XP is certainly nothing like a move from 95/98/Me to 2K or XP. There were major gains to be had across the board there. I'm not seeing that with Vista, honestly. Hell, I hear quite a few companies are still using NT 4. Reprogramming custom apps or hardware to work with a new OS is surely the biggest concern here, and secondarily the need to adapt to UI changes that are of questionable worth.
... about half of which are skipped by most big companies.
Stating the obvious is nothing more than annoying. It is clear that you dislike Microsoft products, and that is fine and valid in many ways. But you've yet to offer a realistic stance on other solutions. Its so funny reading this thread, those who dislike Vista can't even decide what is bad about Vista.
Vista has compatibility issues. Of course it was going to...
Vista does not offer something new or useful for everyone. That would be nearly impossible...
Vista has a new look. One that I find vastly improved, others maybe not. Can't please everyone...
Vista has a number of new subsystems that are improved for both home and business used. Simply tossed out because they're "useless" to some.
Seriously, no one has made an honest argument against Vista other than compatibility. There are real and tangible benefits, simply because you find them useless does not mean they're not there.
What company is using NT4.0 in a production setting on a mass scale? I'd suggest steering clear of that IT dept, because quick frankly, they are idiots.
There is plenty to be gained by using Vista in the workplace once compatibility issues are ironed out. For starters I actually like the UAC, even keeps admins from installing crap on their computer that requires work down the road when it comes to rebuilding the workstation.
Then you can tack on better memory management, a better UI, I believe it virtualizes the file system, at least on the x64 edition, so virus should be somewhat contained, same with physical memory.
... about half of which are skipped by most big companies.
The only desktop OS we skipped from Win3.0 to where we are today is Win98... And what really did 98 offer over 95 OSR2? Absolutely nothing. Same drivers, same kernel, same UI, same memory management, slightly better USB support (but since we were using 95 OSR2, it really didn't matter).
3.0 - 3.11WFW -> 95 -> 2000 (I don't count ME as being skipped, as it really wasn't a workstation OS compared to 2000) -> XP -> Vista.
And I agree with the poster above me -- if you have a shop that's depending on NT4.0 for day-to-day business on a mass scale, then you're banking your organizations' entire IT life on oboslete antiquated crap. You can't pay Microsoft to support your NT4 systems any longer.
And in three years and six months, you won't be able to PAY them to support your XP systems either. If your only argument is compatibility with old shit home-brew legacy systems, it's time to fire your lazy-assed development team and get someone who knows WTF they're doing and is worthy of earning the paycheck.
Staying current is not cheap, of course. But being left behind in obsolesence is considerably more expensive on the long run.
Ban is the word used by the media. Moratorium (2) which means the same thing is the word used by the US Department of Transport for Example.
This basically forbids departments in the entire DOT from installing Vista at all, even if that department makes up it's own mind to do so. I can't remember any similar ban or moratorium being placed at this level.
This kind of resistance is what forced Dell and other OEMs to recently switch back to selling Windows XP preinstalled.
At the time, hardware requirements. Our Win3.11 machines were capable of running 95 without much issue at all, and we wanted to start using 32-bit software. NT4.0 was a bit more steep, and at the time our IT staff wasn't nearly in the state we are today, so they didn't go that way.
Much of our dilligence today has precipitated from our past bad experiences; our move to Vista is to ensure we don't repeat previous "failures" where we decided obsolesence was ok -- until it came back to bite us in the ass hardcore. Now we're almost always within one major version of current, no matter what the software. Even our massive ERP system is being updated only after being in place for less than two years; it's now two versions from current and if we don't start the upgrade now, we'll be into the support sunset date in another 18 months.
As for the DOT? Yeah, they're still using software so old that it doesn't even run correctly on Win2K boxes in many cases. There are some severe problems with that kind of operation, no matter who it is. That's not a reflection of Microsoft, that's a reflection of complete government IT management failure on a massive scale.
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I didn't mean to say there is some company out there with 1000 NT4 PCs still going. I meant more that I have no doubt that it is still used on some systems, especially if there is a custom app or piece of hardware designed around it. If it just works, why change? That is the big picture here. If there is no real cost savings or money making advantage to switching over, what's the point?
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I'll tell you the point, along with a story.
Ten years ago when I first started working for this company, they had the same idea. We were still big, but IT wasn't allowed to spend money. And why should they be? What we had, worked. We didn't need new stuff, because NT 3.51 and Novell 3.0 and all that other crap was just fine. So were our old IBM E-series mainframes, so were our AS-400 boxes, et al.
And then our primary server broke -- and it broke bigtime. The RAID5 lost two drives simultaneously during a spike, along with the systemboard. No problem, right, we have backups. But we didn't have the hardware, and we couldn't get that system board any longer. So we went out, that day, and bought a brand new server to get us running. It cost a fortune to get that kind of hardware "off a shelf", but we did it because we needed that app and it's database.
But we couldn't restore the old OS image on the (far, far newer) hardware. So we decided to fully reinstall the OS with NT 4.0, except NT 4.0 wasn't compatible with our software we needed so desperately. So on goes 3.51, which was no longer supported by MS. Couldn't find drivers for it. Couldn't get it to even boot right.
Fine, whatever, let's use this new piece of hardware for something else and transition another of our "older" boxes that we knew could run 3.51 with drivers we had on-file. Rebuilt the OS, got it running on the old POS hardware, and then tried to reinstall the application -- but now we couldn't get it to work either. It needed special OS config changes that weren't documented; it needed a certain drive setup for the database that we couldn't remember (and weren't able to easily re-discover from the backup)
We never had a problem with obsolesence until something broke. We then discovered the necessity of keeping current when it cost us almost a quarter of a million dollars to bring people from a several-year-defunct application development house to FLY to our facility and stay for a week while they remembered how to rebuild this app they built four years prior.
That almost completely destroyed our company -- not because of quarter million cost in getting it fixed, it was due to the tens of millions of dollars of lost productivity while it was down for 11 days.
If you think "it's not broken, so why change it?" is a valid business methodology in an age where computer software goes out of lifecycle in few-year increments, you're a complete disaster waiting to happen. Hell, you should be thankful that Microsoft is allowing their OSes to be supported for as long as they are. PeopleSoft isn't that friendly, neither is IBM, Orcale, and the vast majority of other top-tier software providers.
You ninja-edited, so I'm doing the same:
So something that can't even run on Win2K is somehow "within a year or so" of being current? And you think this thread is humorous before you started adding to it? Yes, it is a failure of IT management to have software that is more than a decade out of support (not out of circulation, as that's even longer) as the underpinnings of your organization -- government or otherwise.
And monopoly has jack to do with any of this -- if they wanted, they can go to any other OS platform they so choose. The reality is still the same on that side of the fence too: the cost "gains" of sliding obsolesence are FAR outweighed the moment you need support on something that broke and nobody knows how to support.
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Well, I didn't mean to say that a company should allow its entire information systems infrastructure to be built around ancient, unsupported hardware that can't be knowingly replaced quickly. I am thinking more along the lines of some obscure piece of old hardware that only works on NT4, say. I dunno what that would be, but I know it is the case out there somewhere. That hardware is still useful for something, maybe with even little use. Why invest in it being modernized? There are plenty of leftovers computer stores out there that can get you a comp capable of NTxx if you need one. Hell, I just recycled a bunch of P5 boards earlier today lol.
However, relating to Vista vs. XP, I definitely don't see the need to jump ontop of Vista as if it's the only way to keep your business up and running. That is absolutely not the case. Maybe in a year or so. But by then I bet there will be better options than the current Vista release anyway.
I am rather bothered by MS's control over you folks and their methods of forced obsolescence. I mean, it's not like we're talking some massive OS change here. It's just time for the world to switch over to the new MS order, yet again, but this time without obvious gains like NT4 to NT5 or 9x to NT5.
However, relating to Vista vs. XP, I definitely don't see the need to jump ontop of Vista as if it's the only way to keep your business up and running. That is absolutely not the case. Maybe in a year or so. But by then I bet there will be better options than the current Vista release anyway.
I am rather bothered by MS's control over you folks and their methods of forced obsolescence. I mean, it's not like we're talking some massive OS change here. It's just time for the world to switch over to the new MS order, yet again, but this time without obvious gains like NT4 to NT5 or 9x to NT5.
Not in our environment, not any longer. That little incident I described above "fixed" our broken philosophy but good... Hardware is leased, be it laptop, desktop, tablet, server, network core switch or printer. And why not; it's a tax writeoff. And with new hardware comes compatibility with new OSes, which means apps have to move forward too.
We simply don't have "old hardware" lying around like that, except for maybe in a dev's corner somewhere for supporting those few people that contract with us to use some of our software. Even then we force those people to keep reasonably current; the oldest OS we support in any (for external clients) is Win2K.
I didn't say that anywhere in this thread. If you'd like to somehow prove me wrong, feel free to quote me where I said everyone should move to Vista this year to make sure they're 100% current.
What I did state is that my company is starting our Vista deployment this year, and we're only deploying it with only new harware. Hardware is on a three year lease cycle, so three years from now, we'll be finished deploying it. You'll see me mention at least once that we're not shoving it to everyone simultaneously, and nor should anyone else that has any semblence of reason.
As stated many times previously by myself and others: just because you cannot understand or "see" the gains does not mean they do not exist. There are significant gains to be had; if you don't understand that, then you're not seeing the whole picture.
That doesn't mean you have to like Vista, but to say that it has zero to offer a business is an utter falsehood.
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The best way to keep things from breaking big time is to distribute (like a loose cluster) everything. That also nicely reduces the need to keep everything on tape all the time. And you need multiple ways to route traffic as well.
That way, when something breaks down, no matter what it is, you can simply switch to another unit/site. It might get slower, but it still works.
In other words: you can simply buy a new one at your leisure when the old one does break down. Because it will, sooner or later. Unless you replace them often, of course.
That way, when something breaks down, no matter what it is, you can simply switch to another unit/site. It might get slower, but it still works.
In other words: you can simply buy a new one at your leisure when the old one does break down. Because it will, sooner or later. Unless you replace them often, of course.
The best way to keep things from breaking big time is to distribute (like a loose cluster) everything. That also nicely reduces the need to keep everything on tape all the time. And you need multiple ways to route traffic as well.
That way, when something breaks down, no matter what it is, you can simply switch to another unit/site. It might get slower, but it still works.
In other words: you can simply buy a new one at your leisure when the old one does break down. Because it will, sooner or later. Unless you replace them often, of course.
Only works with hardware and OSes (and applications) that are capable of doing such a thing, and only for as long as you can buy any one of those three with ease. Still doesn't solve obsolesence, and more than certainly isn't "cheaper" if you're trying to stick with some antiquated chunk of software after about five or six years.
Most of our servers these days are either virtual (with the VMWare image residing on a huge SAN) or from a blade server with a RAID-1 pair of drives for OS and swap and the rest of the storage plumbed into our SAN. So essentially, damn near everything is on one of our giant SAN boxes, which are uber-redundant, riciculously fast and backed up nightly to a monsterous automated tape library unit. One copy of the tapes stays on-site, one copy goes to an offsite vault -- the location of which depending on the campus' location.
There's a big difference between sticking to old SW on purpose or being forced to do so due to the lack of alternatives. We still have a DOS-partition on our work machines for some measuring tols which never got an update in 10 years for example. You can't solve this with anything else besides paying for the development of completely new SW, which would cost more than out 3 years IT budget for sure.
One thing that may be able to solve some of these sorts of problems in the future is virtualization. As VMWare and MSVPC get better, "antiquated" software will be able to live longer on modern hardware and operating systems.
One thing you need to look at and this is hard to do is the cost of maintaining that dos partition on workstations and the ancient tools that require it. It is a hard thing to put a dollar value on that, but it isnt free to do, that is for sure.
Although I enjoyed reading your stories, some of the things you say about the government are kinda screwed up. Therefore I assume you have never worked for the government.
While it must be nice to be in the private sector where you have all the money you want the government isn't so lucky. Money is actually pretty hard to come by. People who joke about the expensive items purchased don't realize that if some those items were not brought that the money would go elsewhere.
Is everything you guys use COTS? None of the stuff is self rolled (made my programmers employed my you)? The government is moving towards COTS but for some classified things that isn't possible. Those systems that cannot be moved over tend to rely on NT or 2K. With the changes in Vista there is a good chance those programs wont work at all. That is not an option when what you rely on deals with the lives of others.
Not in this case, it's a firmly defined image with fixed usage, not a "work" partition in any other sense. If it gets damaged, just restore a fresh image and you're good to go.
But still, some stuff requires native DOS and that's the sole reason for its existance. To end soon, hopefully
I would recommend simply using DOSBox for stuff like that. I would be surprised if it didn't work. Unless they hook up to hardware directly.Not in this case, it's a firmly defined image with fixed usage, not a "work" partition in any other sense. If it gets damaged, just restore a fresh image and you're good to go.
But still, some stuff requires native DOS and that's the sole reason for its existance. To end soon, hopefully
But I agree, stuff like this is why many companies still use NT4.
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