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Vista is killing my staff

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Over the last 6 months we have been trying to integrate Vista into our client?s environments with as little user/administration pain as possible. I must say that Vista is going to do 3 things for our industry.
1. Cause the administrators to dig in and enjoy their job security ? for the truly skilled IT professional?
2. Cause the average administrator to quit and move to another profession.
3. Cause the general IT population to really conceder moving to a Linux shop.

We have found supporting Vista to be twice the support cost of XP without the ability to retain the same reliability.
For the first time in 10 years my firm was ask buy a client to uninstall an OS ?Vista? and install an off the shelf purchase of XP pro. 60+ stations.

Every day I have to log into my Vista test environment I find myself asking:

?What was Microsoft Thinking??

Topic

Vista grunts.

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

Anyone who advises a company to migrate their client base over to Vista for what ever reason so early on is crazy. The prison service it self has only just gone on to XP which was a massive job if i hadnt already left I would the day they say its time to migrate to Vista.

Vista has a feature called Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR)

you can read about it here
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb430720.aspx

if it does this per process this causes all sorted of problems for shared applications as since Windows 95 all DLL’s have been located in the same place every reboot. Now its just not the case. This and the introduction of the “user account control” this feature should be listed under “hell”.

I would like to say that our new customers can be fully supported but we have added a new section that has to ask what O/S they are using with a nice disclamer “WE CAN NOT SUPPORT VISTA USRES”

Anyways i have had my little rant.

Details, please.

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

“We have found supporting Vista to be twice the support cost of XP…”

What would you say is causing this? Lack of end user training? Lack of support staff training? Inadequate hardware for the OS? Application software not compatible with the OS? All of the above and more?

Not finding out whether any of the above

In reply to Details, please.

would/may/could occur before they did it, would be my guess.

I know MS fanboys say it just works, but 60 workstations and an entire infrastructure, you’d have to be some sort of muppet.

Vista support cost

In reply to Details, please.

Why does Vista cost so much more to support? Because even doing simple tasks can take 2x as long in Vista.

Try this, try editing the hosts file on a Vista computer. Should take less than a minute. Adding printers, installing software…heck even copying files is slower on Vista.

I agree, Vista was designed for guys that charge by the hour;)

Im not sure where you are going

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

with all this.

But it sounds like you find Vista difficult to work with. I did as well at first, but after a day or two on the phone with Dell and MS to resolve an issue, I feel very comfortable with Vista. That being said, it still will not run our CRM software, or in otherwords, 90% of our buisness computing (Pre-Press design is 9% email 1%).

BUT, if it did support our CRm, I would be okay with Vista Buisness in our domain. I prefer XP to be sure, buy thats because I have a much larger comfort zone with XP. I see Vista being adopted here long befor server 2008. Which is a shame, becasue 2008 has more to offer up in terms of GPO, NaC etc… (XP SP3 will add serevr 2003 NAC support according to technet).

Sorry but I’m not having that

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

Have you been hiding under a rock or something?

You thought it would just work, why?

Do you want to buy a bridge?

If he

In reply to Sorry but I’m not having that

buys your bridge, send em my way..got one i want to get rid of!!

I don’t know a whole lot about OS’s. but I know enough that I would not actually use Vista for a real live business..I use it at home and it runs nothing..I can’t even fathom the havoc it would cause…

I’m on it now, have been for nearly nine months

In reply to If he

But some poor git of an admin, had to get me to the point I could, and while there were no insurmountable issues, there were a lot of very irritating ones.

Enterprise virus didn’t work.
AD differences.
New hardware
wait for drivers
ghost problems
internal and external web sites not working with IE7.
Software tracking still doesn’t work

We needed it in R&D to make our products Vista compatible, so we got used as guinea pigs.

All in all it hasn’t gone too badly, but I’ve worked at places where it would have been major heartache and seriously expensive.

I can’t for the life of me of me figure out why anyone would think it would just work. That’s not even a hack at windows, I’ve been involved in HP, VMS, Unix, Linux and windiows rollouts.

Only a complete eejit would go for the ‘suck it and see’ approach.

Software downgrade – Vista back to XP

In reply to Sorry but I’m not having that

Has anyone heard about this NEC software that allows you to downgrade Vista back to XP – is it worth it?

File this under “lessons learned”

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

You’re likely to get flamed to high heaven, as Vista has been the laughingstock of OSes for some time.

I see you have listed your role as CIO/CTO, which will likely earn you more flames.

The reason for the flames is that so many of us are so frustrated with M$ hell being rammed down our throats by executives who have either ignored our warnings or never solicited our opinions to begin with.

At the risk of sounding rude, your post suggests that you have done just such a thing. In the future, solicit opinions from your staff before making a move, and visit sites like this one to get the general pulse of the industry. Arm yourself with information and be an advocate for IT. If you rubber stamp the whims of the other executives, you’ll find yourself in this situation repeatedly.

No lessons needed

In reply to File this under “lessons learned”

No lessons needed here I NEVER rule without guidance. Please note this is our client?s environment!

FYI my Staff all have tremendous Voice in the operation and movement of IT in my company.

Just an FYI, but

In reply to No lessons needed

Some versions of Vista can be downgraded to XP…

Sorry, I misunderstood…. in that case you have my sympathies!!!

In reply to No lessons needed

Give my advice to the client!

😀

You too?

In reply to File this under “lessons learned”

When XP came out it was “complete SHITE, garbage, bollocks, what a crock of crap!”

several years later, and many bugs, fixes and patches down the road, people now swear by XP. It happens for all OS’s, not just MS.

Times change, Vista out of teh box in its infancy, is 100 times the OS that XP was when it came out. just give them time to get to teh little bugs and issues, just as with Xp and Vista will then be the OS nobody wants to upgrade from due to how great it is.

It’s the same old song and dance with people stating that the last OS is king (generally we only see that from OS newbies though).

Vista is not the same

In reply to You too?

I dragged my employer kicking and screaming to windows 95, as it was so much better than 3.1, but warned of 98 and ME, but those two, as painful as they were have nothing on the nightmares XP causes.

OS newbies, eh?

In reply to You too?

I’ve been using or supporting Windows since 3.1. Having been saddled with ME before, I wouldn’t touch Vista with a 10-foot pole for at least 2 more years. Even then, I’ve seen far too much detail on numerous sites and discussions to do that without serious consideration. And most of the problems I’ve read about are being discussed by the technical people, not newbies. Where have you been lately?

HERE HERE on the Whim of Executives

In reply to File this under “lessons learned”

I am chuckling at some of the responses to this thread. (Shakes head woefully)

I must agree with Locrian_lyric. If you are going to role out an upgrade, DO NOT BELIEVE the hype from M$ or a VP who just bought a new computer for his/her home and it had vista on it. Vista is plagued with many many problems and I must admit many are surrmountable if you and your department have the time. However, to just go out and start upgrading before your department knows what to do. Harken the warnings and concerns of those of us when 2000 was being touted as the end all be all of Corporations around the world. It took alot of time and alot of man hours to get it right.

For me, Linux has been wonderful and is more and more looking more appealing for the corporate desktop environment. We must continue to educate the masses on this product. I beleive Linux on the Desktop is at its prime time now that Vista doesn’t support many many many older pieces of equipment. Linux may not support everything, but put the word out that a driver is needed and my bet would be that you get a response 1000% faster than a response from M$.

There … that is my rant. Hope everyone can learn a lesson from poorly informed CIO/CTO.

Time to get with the programs?

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

The EXACT same things were said when XP was new, before that it was ME, before that Win98SE, Before that Win95 over 3.11.

You need to understand that XP, when released was the worst OS anyone had seen. It was bug ridden, insecure, unresourceful and just overall GARBAGE.

Here’s what TR discussions were like when XP was new:

If you’re a masochist …
XP is the direction Windows is taking, and it certainly won’t reverse. So learn about XP (the Professional version is highly recommended over the Home Edition) but hang on to your ME disc.

Most people who post at this website HATE XP

……………………………………..
XP better but depends on hardware.
Firstly if the XP disc is XP Home, burn it and stay with ME, more stable. If it is XP Pro then look at your hardware.

……………………………………..

Why would any company seriously consider rolling out XP in a work environment? The initial cost of installation would be economically unfeasible in the current market environment! I don’t see XP as making an impact in the work place.

……………………………………..

I not a fan of XP yet and doubt I will be,
Securing it was a nightmare.
The user interface is anything but intuitive. And I really despise the big crayola crayon kindergarten style graphics.
XP home is just like ME/98. The security sucks. Even if you install it on NTFS.
XP is just a money making scheme by M$ to force an OS down the consumers throat. And to “ease” us into the licensing scheme.
For me, 2K sp2 with hotfixes and my own special blend of secruity techniques will be as far as I go in the M$ world until .NET is fully tested and intergrated to the desktop OS.

There was no reason at all for M$ to develop XP except to make cash.

[i](This was from one of TR’s most respected IT professionals and without contest from other peers, who ultimately agreed)[/i]

………………………………………
Yea….What XXXXXXXX Said…
Stick with 2k. Especially on a Corp.Network

……………………………………..

Times will change, Vista is not a bad operating system , it has a feature set far more user friendly and more useful for work than anything MS has previously released, including XP. When I was literally FORCED to adopt an XP box for helping a client, it was the worst day of my computing life. XP was absolutely DREADFUL! It was hard to secure, had the worst graphical interface, was full of bugs and I got harped on pretty good by peers here when they found out I had XP running on any of my boxes (working as a consultant and offsite support for a few newtworks). a short while later, that contract was over and I happiily delivered their Xp box to them and went back to my Win2K and Mac world.

I never bought an XP box, never used it at home beyond that. I supported endless problems for XP users but was not dumb enough to do it myself.

Well times change, and nwo by force I have a Vista Pro notebook due to a 1hr time frame to replace everything.

It runs like a top for the most part, it has an intuitive interface, very good indexing and search functions, the path/dropdown menu in everty explorer bar makes moving through files and tasks much easier than previous OS’s.

Once they start to fix a few bugs and little inconveniences, nothing as major as teh original XP problems were, it will be a far better OS than Xp was or even has become.

It’s funny to see just how times change and everyone becomes complacent and used to what they know, whether it actually IS better or not.

RE: Time to get with the programs?

In reply to Time to get with the programs?

I think that NT and 2000 users had a much easier transition to XP than, say 98SE/ME users.

That being said, XP was not that huge of a departure from the way things were done in 98/ME.

The first time I supported a client with a XP machine, I thought that it was really hard to work with. Of course, I wasn’t running it at home yet…I was still on ME at the time.

I did realize that it was more like NT and 2000, which I had comfort in supporting. When I made the switch to XP Professional at home, it was instant love. I upgraded my installation of ME without changing the filesystem (FAT32) and was able to run legacy applications with little or no problems. I was even able to keep A LOT of my old hardware (I only had to upgrade my flatbed scanner – no big deal there).

Vista is simply not the same. I began supporting it last year, and decided to install it on my home computer. Worst mistake I ever made.

It wouldn’t run a lot of my old software. It isn’t compatible with a lot of my hardware, and it is a memory and resource hog with it’s DRM and UAC issues. It takes 3-4 steps in Vista to do something that takes 1-2 steps to do in XP. Networking with Vista is a nightmare, as it refuses to connect to certain machines that XP and OSX will connect to with no problems.

I ended up reformatting and placing XP back on my system at home. Glad I did. I wish everyone else would as well.

Still waiting on TRACKS to provide some detail

In reply to Time to get with the programs?

Exactly HOW is Vista making his life a living hell?

Just to add my own experience with Vista migration…

In reply to Still waiting on TRACKS to provide some detail

I’m currently working as a consultant for a well-known international oil company. My current project has me involved with their global migration from Windows 2000 pro to Vista.

To give you a bit more detail, the migration process aims to ensure that all applications will work as expected under Vista. If it doesn’t, it goes to a team that will try to see if a “quick-fix” can solve the cause of the failure. If it still won’t work, it goes through a remediation process that will determine the best course of action (like do we have to upgrade to the vista-compatible version? Can we fix the source code to make it work with Vista? or can we simply decommission the application if it wont have too much of an impact on business continuity? etc…)

Suffice it is to say that migrating nearly 5000 applications (off-the-shelf and custom-built) it is nothing short of hellish. The estimated timeline to complete this migration was targetted at 2 years. But at the rate things are going right now, it will probably take around 3 years realistically speaking. By that time, a new version of Windows will probably be out…

Anyway, don’t look at me, it wasn’t my idea to go with Vista. I just work here…

😀

98 and ME were dogs

In reply to Time to get with the programs?

I was an early adopter of XP and liked it and was part of a large project to upgrade.

95 was a good OS, 98 was buggy as all get out, and IMO was never as stable or reliable as 95. ME was a joke, but with XP, M$ finally seemed to get it right in many ways.

Vista will go the way of ME, and IMO, most users will jump from XP to whatever supplants Vista.

I have to agree. Vista not that bad

In reply to Time to get with the programs?

It seems blatantly obvious that we have also forgotten that we all have choices to make, stick with the program or move to another format. I sounds to me that everybody just want to come to work and play cards. We are in the technology arena for a reason. We have to be trained for a reason. Why have you forgotten that? I have worked with all of the operating systems Microsoft has created. I can’t say I like one over the other, but XP was a great step up from it’s predecessors, and administering and deploying Vista is easy. I have to admit that the lack of hardware support is a real bite in the butt, which was what I admired about XP.

Yes we are here for a reason, and part of our expertise is…

In reply to I have to agree. Vista not that bad

Knowing when not to bet on a dog.

Vista is a dog, by the time M$ gets their act together, the next OS will already be out.

In the meantime, it is also part of our expertese to steer management away from making decisions that will harm the bottom line, the increased expense of maintaining vista prior to M$ getting their act together alone justifies delayiing or scrapping the idea altogether.

No one should ever buy into a new OS until SP2

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

I figured that out in 1995 when I was still working at a bookstore selling computer books and not working with an actual computer yet.

You’re Dead On!

In reply to No one should ever buy into a new OS until SP2

I do everything from building machines to consulting to networking to training, and that has been my mantra for years. In fact, every time I teach a class on anything Microsoft, I always ask the question, “have any of you ever met a Microsoft Beta-Tester?” When they all shake their heads “no”, I ask, “would you like to meet some Microsoft Beta-Testers?”. When they start looking excited and shaking their heads “yes!”, I say, “then look around the room – we’re ALL Microsoft Beta-Testers – they just don’t pay us to be Microsoft Beta-Testers”.

I ALWAYS recommend that one waits until all the “gotta be firsts” rush out and buy the latest/greatest and find out that it doesn’t work the way it is supposed to, let MS start sending out their SPs, and like you said, don’t even make a jump until they’ve done 2 SPs before considering it, MAYBE.

Seems as if the MS development team is constantly fighting the marketing side of the building, trying to finish development before the marketing department starts screaming “we’ve go to get it out the door – NOW!” Too bad, because I know for a fact (because I’ve known some MS developers), at MS, that’s SOP – to push the envelope and release “CRAP” before it is finished being developed or even beta-tested (at least the little done before shipping an MS OS or app).

The problem most consumers have is that MS forces the OEMs to carry (especially for home consumers) only their newest OS with no possibility of a second OS option. Of course the OEMs like it that way as well – costs less to pre-load one OS and let the consumer battle it out with MS over the OS not doing what it is supposed to do, or use it as an excuse for why half their older external equipment doesn’t work with the new OS.

I’ll really be glad when we get to the point where all software (at least apps – not the OS) is like cable TV – you just subscribe to what you want and don’t worry about versions, etc. At that point every app will be a web app of some sort, compatible with all dumb machines (at that point – since the OS [so to speak] will NOT be the main attraction).

But, we have a ways to go before that happens – there’s too much money involved in doing it the way we’re currently doing it now, and MS especially doesn?t want to rock that boat.

Having said that, I?ve noticed that sales of MAC and Linux machines have started rising, in part (I?m sure) due to Vista and MS Office 2007. Since Vista is extremely slow (when compared to XP) and all of the MS Office 2007 apps have changed the paradigm which MS had us believing in for the last 20 years (you know ? FILE EDIT VIEW, etc.) it has made for a better case against the status-quo (Microsoft) and more for the stylish (MAC) or down-right cheap (Linux). If I had to foot the bill for 60 new machines, each with copies of an office apps package like MS Office (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, email) and my choices were PC with MS Vista, MAC with OS X Leopard, or an inexpensive Linux running OpenOffice I might start changing my thought process.

Vists compared with opensuse 10.3 for speed.

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

I bought my wife (who has a degree in computing) a Lenovo dual core laptop with 2 gig ram and I added a 4 gig usb “accelerator” memory stick.
Its still slow, so I did a comparision on start up with Suse 10.3 /OOfice 2.3 and latest Firefox.
The comparison as an AMD Durion PC all of 750 Mhz with 256 meg ram, yes a fit 4 the skip PC that a friend was going to take to the skip.
Surprisingly, the performance is about the same. Compared with XP Vista is also terribly slow.I compare it with a 2 GHz P-IV with 1 gig ram running XP + Load of non approved XP compatible add ons.
Compared with open Suse 10.3 it is very poor.
M$ seem to have got it wrong badly this time.

I have done some testing of my

In reply to Vists compared with opensuse 10.3 for speed.

own on my laptop (core 2 duo at 2Ghz, 2 GB ram, 120 GB 7500 rpm sata disk). I have installed XP, Vista Buisness, and Linux (Ubuntu 7.10). On this machine one after the other. Ran the updates until full on each, and timed boot up and OO.org start ups. An informal test was running a game I like (sorry, no linux binary, to lazy to set up wine/cdegga).
Using all the latest Dell drivers, XP booted an average of 3 seconds slower then Vista, and Linux averaged about 10 seconds slower. But, I had to boot Ubuntu 1 time for every 10 times I rebooted XP/Vista.
OO.org opened faster in Vista then in XP (3.5 as opposed to like 4 ish seconds). Linux appeared to be closer to Vista. My times here are very inexact, as I was doing it all “by eye,” no software timers.

Vista

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

I think the one of the biggest mistakes was making the hardware requirements so high. I know many shops that simply cannot afford to replace every piece of hardware simply to run a new OS–that’s ludicrous.

Forget the compatibility issues and putting those aside…the infrastructure/hardware costs for many companies is simply too high for little return.

Toss in the custom company apps that won’t work and you have a situation where no one is willing to risk disrupting operations for a very long time…this ain’t no weekend upgrade!

Vista, IMO, is another Windows ME, unfortunately and most people I speak with say they will just keep on using XP–it is solid, reliable and works well especially in Corporate AD environments.

With XP, we’ve reached that enviable place of having ZERO day-to-day support calls from users encountering blue screens, OS errors, or any of the problems we’ve all had back in the days of Windows 95…why would we want to go backwards in that respect…

Good luck to all living with Vista…hope it works out–for your sanity 😉

Please stop…

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

Quit complaining, do your homework, install SP1 on Vista, and move on down the road … there was a FANTASTIC post on this thread which details the same adoption woes w/ XP when moving from Win2k and 98/ME.

Truth be told, Windows7 won’t be ready until 2011 so get used to Vista SP1 . . . it’s not that bad unless you are too lazy or not that good of an admin.

Don’t Boot Up M$, Boot OUT M$! GO LINUX!

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

My suggestion is to move to Linux. I am a new user to Linux (~ 2 weeks and counting) but, I have seen a remarkable difference in how it handles everything. I switched from XP Home ed. which worked so so but, was getting slow. Now I’ve got an OS that rivals the looks and functionality of the new M$ and Apple OSes on a 5 year old laptop.

Secondly, IT’S FREE!!! And, supporting software is FREE!!! In business it’s about the bottom line so, this makes sense.

(I would suggest however, to make donations to some of the Linux development organizations with that financial savings.)

That would be really nice…

In reply to Don’t Boot Up M$, Boot OUT M$! GO LINUX!

But the sad reality is (for us corporate users), most of the applications we use only work with Windows. A few apps are starting to be converted to web-based apps (which unfortunately doesn’t mean it is guaranteed to work on just ANY browser). Some are thin/thick clients that still need Windows (because of ActiveX and dependency on some DLL’s). But for those client-server / standalone / legacy apps that were made with only Windows in mind, there’s not much choice is there? Convert these apps to a Linux-compatible version? Not likely due to costs and time constraints… Plus you have to consider the amount of time and money that will have to be poured into training the people how to use Linux.

For home users, this may be viable especially if the user is a first-time computer user. But you still cannot deny that a lot of apps and games are made for Windows only and that will heavily influence users on what OS they want installed on their PCs.

If only the open-source / Linux community had the marketing muscle and influence of MS (which is probably NOT likely to happen anytime soon)… Maybe things just might change for the better.

Nothing is free

In reply to Don’t Boot Up M$, Boot OUT M$! GO LINUX!

Anyone who claims that Linux is free is kidding themselves.

Line of business applications? Cost for training employees to use the new software? Everything has a cost. Linux is not free, to a Systems Admin.

And as a sidenote: do we have to talk like 12 year olds and use “M$?”

Using “M$” seems to be the “in” thing nowadays…

In reply to Nothing is free

NT 😀

Re [i]Microsoft just might listen after somebody in big business sues them

In reply to Nothing is free

What exactly is wrong with using M$ for Microsoft?

The MS that you want to push into use is a recognized Disease with no known cure [b]Multiple Sclerosis.[/b] So just how is it helpful to make a lot of people think that computers have caught an Incurable Disease.

Personally to me that is far more childish than using something that everyone understands and accepts.

Just remember that MS was around and known as MS long before Billy Boy cobbled together that Punch Tape in the garage so it quite rightly has the rights to MS.

Microsoft being a new comer gets what it’s given and shouldn’t have complaints.

If you think that this is unacceptable you are welcome to deal with the Medical Profession that I do on a daily basis and waste the best part of every day explaining that the Computers are not sick and do not need putting down and being replaced.

Col

Col

One Man’s Opinion

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

I went from DOS to 2000 willingly, lagging far behind those on the bleeding edge in the upgrade process. It was a decision that served me well.

2000 was the only OS in my Microsoft experience that was actually faster than the previous OS. It’s happened only once since DOS in my lifetime. I moved to XP because in the wisdom of Adobe, you had to have XP to get the CS Suite and Premiere Pro. My testing showed XP to take exactly twice as long to render an edit as 2000. That would make Vista 1/5 to 1/10 as fast as 2000. I wonder if anyone has ever run a comparison?

The trend continues… I don’t think a M$ os will ever be faster than its predecessor again, in my lifetime.

I think you have the wrong people working for you…

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

I’ve dished out countless Vista machines and have yet to hear anything negative that SP1 hasn’t corrected.

In my opinion, it’s more about who installs it rather than who runs it. Also, very early in the Vista game, I had started to recommend no less than 2GB of RAM on any version of Vista.

SP1 makes an amazing difference…if you haven’t, check it out.

Why are you trying?

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

I just question WHY you’re trying to bring Vista in. Is there some software or functionality that only Vista brings? If these are supported clients, why would they not listen to your advice? Was your advice to move to Vista?

I can’t turn left or right without reading a reason to stay away from Vista, in the business sector.

Who sold you Vista?

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

Go back to XP.Microsoft just might listen after somebody in big business sues them.

Re [i]Microsoft just might listen after somebody in big business sues them

In reply to Who sold you Vista?

On what grounds?

M$ has got things sewn up so tightly that they are impossible to sue because a OS or any other product of theirs doesn’t work as claimed.

As things stand now you can only instigate any Legal Action Against M$ for False Advertising where they have deliberately misinformed the General Public but as far as Faulty Software is concerned they are untouchable.

After testing Vista since the Volume License Product was released I’m waiting to see what Windows 7 looks like. I don’t think that Vista will be a working alternative to XP ever for Business at least.

Col

Vista works for me

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

I’m in the business of repairing, upgrading and networking PC’s for small businesses and home office clients. I do not consider myself a “consultant” but a PC “doc” or mechanic ….. and, while I use ubuntu and XP for my personal and internal business use, that is my choice. When clients ask me if they should upgrade to Vista or purchase a Vista machine, I tell them it is their choice and give them a realistic estimate of the costs for the hardware and peripherals that will work in a satisfactory manner. Given those costs, some have chosen to go with Mac systems, others have chosen to stick with XP until hardware costs come down or peripherals wear out. If properly configured, Vista systems run just fine, and if folks want the “bling for the bucks”, it is their CHOICE … I earn my fees either way. Some of you folks need to stop complaining …. the situation is what it is and it is up to us to adapt or find something else to do for a living.

Well I am a “consultant”

In reply to Vista works for me

I AM a consultant and my job is to to what is right for the client, even if they don’t know what that is. The customer is always right is good enough for Geek Squad but my clients pay me to tell them when they are F#&%ing up. To imply, (as Microsoft does) that Vista’s problems are an opportunity for revenue is unprofessional to the point of criminal. There is absolutely no way a competent computer professional with the clients best interests in mind can recommend Vista. None. Period. This isn’t chicken little. This is good business. People need to do WORK. Office, Quickbooks, Autocad etc. There is no way that you can make the argument that a Vista system is better for day to day work than Xp. There are NO features in Vista that actually INCREASE speed thus productivity. PERIOD. Our clients pay for our expertice, if yours don’t beleive you when you tell them NO to Vista, ya might need to work on your credibility.

Amen, brother!

In reply to Well I am a “consultant”

You are EXACTLY correct. There is no compelling reason to have business customers move to Vista, even if the kinks have all been worked out. Yes, the eye candy is cool, but how does that increase business productivity? If one of my clients could give me a legitimate business reason for moving to Vista, then I would step up and support that client doing so. I must say that I’m not overly worried about that happening any time soon.

You asked “What was Microsoft Thinking”?

In reply to Vista is killing my staff

The answer would probably be…

“Ka-ching!”

😀

[Author]

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