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Upgrade to Vista - or no?

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by kim_forbes 2 views

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Hi all,

Has anybody experienced any issues (apart from the obvious hardware support, etc) with an upgrade from XP to Vista? From the research I have done, it seems a minority have also experienced complications with the upgrade itself not completing.

The company I am with are debating a standardised upgrade to all our machines from XP, but I am of the mind that this should wait at least until a SP for Vista (hopefully soon) is fully released.

To help preparation, any experiences or comments are welcome and appreciated.

18 replies

by boxfiddler Hot topic

The department for which I work is the apparent testbed for Vista in our college district. It has posed significant problems for our IT department.
Vista does not integrate well with our network.
A number of educational software packages we use do not function properly - and in some cases at all - on Vista.
The software used to remove student data and miscellaneous chat, downloads, etc... on nightly reboot does not function on Vista.
USB drives are problematic at the rate they are used around here.

The IT department has been running around like a chicken with its scowling head cut off all semester.

Keep in mind that mine is an educational institution and has differing needs than would a corporation or not-for-profit.

hth

by jplconsultant

In the world of software, newer is NOT better. You're right that the wise move is to wait for a SP for Vista. I recommend to my customers they wait about 18 months or until SP2, whichever comes later, before upgrading to a newer OS.

Vista has a lot of hardware and software trouble, in my opinion. Its networking skills are worse than XP. To really make a decision, you'll have to look at ALL your hardware and ALL your software and networking environment. Then see if each piece of software and hardware has any known issues with Vista. Based on that assessment, what's the learning curve (lost productivity) for Vista and any new software/hardware you'll have to implement?

All in all, this is a decision only you can make for your company. But in general, I would recommend you stay away from Vista for as long as you can. Remember, MS will still support XP for a few years, which means software and hardware vendors will still make their products to support XP. So you lose nothing by staying with XP, but risk everything by moving to Vista.

JPL()

by thechas

On existing systems, the only reason I can think of to upgrade an OS is for either improved security or because you need the newer OS to run an application.

As has been stated, check all of your hardware and software. Don't neglect any browser based apps or Intranet web pages.

On hardware, make sure that you check every printer and scanner. My rule of thumb is that if the manufacture does not offer a Vista driver assume that you will at best have limited functionality from the device.

My experience with Vista is that it is about as different from XP as Windows 95 was from Windows 3.1. Office 2007 should have no less of a learning curve.

Aside from the above, I find it hard to recommend expending personal let alone company funds for a Vista upgrade. Even more now that you can purchase new systems with XP installed and not Vista.

IMHO a Vista upgrade for a company is a poor use of company funds with little chance for a near term ROI.

Chas

by jackofalltech

I recently bought 4 laptops, one for me, my wife, and my 2 oldest children. They came with Vista Home Premium.

My oldest son immediately wiped the drive and installed XP. I played with it for about a day, then went back to XP. My wife tried for 2 days and my Daughter stuck it out for 3 days before they asked me to put XP on.

I didn't have any serious trouble connecting to my home network but a LOT of our existing software wouldn't work. I'm not talking about weird stuff either, standard stuff like Paintshop Pro and almost all my games.

I will never use Vista unless forced to at work. When it's absolutely necessary to change my Op/Sys, I'm going to Linux.

by tig2

I was so dead set against a Vista upgrade, I bought a Mac. While there is a learning curve, I would have faced a learning curve with Vista too.

I've done some playing with Vista as well but am happy to hear of your experience. I had a feeling that it would not offer the home user the level of functionality they want.

Have you played with any of the distros yet? I have and am quite pleased with the ease of use with a number of them. I have also been pleased to find that there are a number of open source work-alike apps available.

The only caution I know of is to test your game software with an emulator (there are two that I know of and possibly a third I haven't played with) to ensure that your games will crossover. Beyond that, Linux is a great alternative.

by jackofalltech

for the same reason I don't like Vista. There is too much interference with doing what I want to do. Vista keeps asking "Are you sure you want to do that?" and OSX just doesn't let you do anything it doesn't want you to do. I have a couple of clients that use Macs so I have to know how to use and fix them, but I don't like it.

I've been playing with Linux for years, since I think RedHat 2.. something and I support several flavors of Unix at work. The one I tried at home most recently was Ubuntu. It was OK but, again, too condescending for my taste.

by armstrongb

I tested Vista Ultimate on a new Dell box. I have 2 XP Pro boxes, 1 desktop and 1 laptop, and a Mandriva Linux box.

Apps that are made for Vista work great, including version X1 of Paintshop Pro, Office2007 and Nero 7x. Apps that are not, such as HomeSite 5.5 and Nero 6x did not run but they do not claim to run on Vista.

The weirdest thing I have seen so far: Network shares that are not available degrade performance on boot and on search using My Computer.

For example, I created a share that reconnects on boot from my XP laptop to the Vista box. And I share a folder from the Vista box to the XP laptop.

1) When the XP laptop is not powered on, the Vista box boots slower than when the XP laptop is turned on. Up to 5 minutes. When the XP laptop was powered up, boot times were less than 2 minutes which is slower than my older, less powerful XP boxes and the Linux box.

2) When the XP laptop was not powered on there was a detrimental effect on Vista when I cliecked on My Computer on my Vista desktop. Once it took over 25 minutes to open My Computer, but it usually takes at least 5 minutes. I thought I had a bad build and was considering a re-load of the OS.

But when I powered up the laptop with the shared folder and clicked the My Computer icon which opened up almost instantly. Just as it does on both of my XP boxes ALL THE TIME whether the mapped resource is available or not.

So I got rid of all "permanent" drive mappings to/from other systems on the Vista box. It boots in less than 90 seconds and My Computer opens instantly and to expectation.

Conclusion:
Vista Ultimate appears to slow down dramatically on boot and/or accessing My Computer on the desktop if a permanent, persistent shared drive or folder on another system is mapped and is unavailable.

The time it takes to open My Computer when a network share is unavailable is unacceptable and seems to degrade performance overall.

Only by running with no shares to/from other systems can I avoid this or by ensuring that whatever folders or drives I map to on Vista are up and running on the other systems.

This is totally unlike XP, 2000 and NT.

by charliespencer

"The company I am with are debating a standardised upgrade to all our machines from XP,..."

Why? I assume someone is pushing this for a reason. What does that person perceive the advantages to be?

Unless you are going to deploy an application that requires Vista, I would not spend the time or money. This applies even after a service pack is released.

by kim_forbes

Hi Palmetto and others,

We are considering an upgrade to Vista for a few reasons. Firstly, all our purchased pre-built systems come with business 32-bit installed and configured (yuk!). This means a total re-configuration of the machine is necessary before we can push our equipment out to our users.
Then there is the hassle with obtaining replacement licenses.....
And then with XP mainstream support coming to an end in 2009...

From the minimal experience I have with Vista, i most definately prefer XP, but Vista seems pretty configurable also?

Thanks guys,
Kim

by charliespencer

I'm not sure who you're getting your new systems from, but I'd tell them I want XP. The new systems will come licensed that way, so that removes that issue.

As far as I can tell, the only semi-valid point is the end of XP support at the end of '09. That's two years away, so that deadline doesn't strike me as a good reason.

The most important point I notice about your reply is you haven't mentioned adding new applications or technology that will only run under Vista and not XP. I still don't see a business-driven reason to do this. Get one new system with Vista, stick in a lab, and test all your existing apps, peripherals, etc. That way you have some experience when something comes along that actually requires you to roll out Vista. In the meantime, stick with XP.

by tig2

I would suggest that you recommend to business that a test cycle be defined and that you understand the business driver for the change.

If there is a business reason to go to Vista, then that will determine the speed of the change. But understand first if the business need can be met another way.

My guess is that business is beginning to see documents in the Office 2007 docx format and cannot read them. This situation should not drive a change to Vista. It may drive an upgrade to Office 2007 but *should* drive an installation of a docx reader application.

In order to evaluate the change, a test bed should be established and the applications that drive business tested there. You may have specialised apps that will not run on Vista and you should know this before any change is made globally.

Another thing to consider is Vista deactivation. WGA could conceivably shut down mission critical systems when you least expect it resulting in phone calls to Microsoft for reactivation. While this is not difficult, it could result in 24x7 service calls increasing which will impact TCO.

Everything I have mentioned is known. I try to not engage on the "I hate Vista" debate but rather to determine the right tool for the job. In order to do that, it is best to understand what business needs specifically and to determine if an upgrade is the right way to deliver the solution.

Let us know how you get on.

by charliespencer

I'm under the impression kim_forbes is working in a large environment. I'm assuming they would get an enterprise license for the operating system. I'm also assuming in that case that activation would be unnecessary.

I'm assuming a lot here just to point out that activation may not be a factor under an enterprise agreement. It isn't with XP.

Just another tuppence.

by tony hopkinson

Is the hardware suitable?
And just as important what software do you run on them.

Stop debating, get a copy of Vista and try to set up a range of clients.

When we did it, a while back
Old hardware misidentified or just missed.
New hardware misidentifed or just missed.
(Drivers are caught up pretty much on new now)
Lots of in house and third party software required admin privileges.
Some just crashed.
Some behaved erratically.
Our Enterprise av didn't work at all.
All sorts of messing about to get email up.
Some external and internal absolutely mandatory websites did not function in IE7
Some things sort of worked oncesyou got good at just hitting OK and continue with UAC popups.

We had to do it in development so we could develop for it.

If you don't, it's not something you want to rush into for a nice concertina control and maintaining your photo album during lunch breaks.

It could all go swimmingly, there again it might not.....

Our stuff works fine now, and I quite like Vista, the poor b'stards who had to pay for my new PC and make it work, they aren't as happy.

by kim_forbes

OK all,

Thanks for all the input - I finally decided to test it on a few laptops for myself - to test how well it intergrates with our win2k/XP environment. I must say that I am a little surprised on how well it has intergrated.

All hardware (which is Vista compliant anyway so I've been informed by Dell) runs pretty flawlessly.

Software is a little issue (just with how naggy the OS is - "Are you sure you want to run this"...blah blah blah)in regards to security but all our apps seemed to work pretty well.

But the OS is soooooo slow on the network!

Even just to browse the local machine...I turned indexing off and it still takes me forever to browse a save location in office....you win some, you lose some..

So, thank you all for the excellent input and advice.

by Former member

I purchased a new machine in March with Vista Ultimate X64 preloaded. I experienced all the problems that Tony Hopkins mentioned as well as a few others.

If speed is an issue, Vista runs between 10 and 30 percent slower than XP on benchmarks I had completed.

Some hardware, such as webcams and some wireless cards/configurations have difficulties.

Between 50 and 80 percent of the applications I used had to be replaced.

Vista has a bug that can destroy a network while synchronizing with it. Although a patch was released within a few days after Vista destroyed my network, it does not matter because you have to have the patch installed to minimize this issue and you have to access a network to install the patch. In other words, the chicken and the egg.

Vista has a memory leak. When booting a clean install from a retail copy with nothing but the OS installed, the computer used 639 megs of ram. After sitting idle for two days, stand-by disabled, the ram use increased to 845 megs.

XP starts with about 25 services, Vista starts with about 45.

Something as simple as changing a hard disk can deactivate the OS.

Disabling the UAC disables RPC endpoint mapping and writing to temporary folders, which can inhibit production roll-out.

Vista has by default 7 system accounts, only three of those can be disabled.

Vista has numerous call home feature that I had to disable via a network firewall. This may or may not be a concern, but because the information was encrypted, I chose to err on the side of caution.

When SP 1 is released, I will test it again. I am not, however optimistic. I did work with, and test Vista for 6 months before 'Upgrading' to XP.

Unless you have an overriding need, I recommend against Vista.

by sman_says

I like XP over Vista as the level of work comfort I got with XP I did not get with Vista. MSCS cluster techonolgy with XP looked better than that on Vista. Also I did not see any special thing in Vista. May be, in future I will need it.

www.browsetoknow.blogspot.com

by kim_forbes

We are currently in the process of doing that - I myself am using a notebook with vista, and the only thing i have had trouble with so far is my OPI connection it seems.

My personal experiences and thoughts regarding Vista have not been very good so far, it is ugly and cumbersome. I just wanted some other opinions also, which everyone has been very generous with.

by nash.saldanha

i think u shud wait for sometime till an updated service pack is released...vista has a few teething probs which i hope microsoft soves soon or else they're gonna be in trouble

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