Is anyone using Vista?

[Mr_Jones]

How're you finding it for use in schools?

 

We've been 'told' that as from September we'll have to use Vista... though I don't know where this order has come from! No doubt someone who doesnt understand about the systems in our school!

[CyberNerd]

....awaiting windows7

 

You don't 'have' to use vista. Becta have some advice on the issue:

http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=28199

[Dos_Box]

How're you finding it for use in schools?

 

We've been 'told' that as from September we'll have to use Vista... though I don't know where this order has come from! No doubt someone who doesnt understand about the systems in our school!

 

Not a new BSF school is it?

[Joanne]

we won't be vista-ing any time soon... (because we have to wait for RM to release it )

 

the main problem with it is that half of the schools programs won't work with it... you know how schools have a tendancy to keep thousands of legacy programs which they use everyday!!

Edited March 17, 2008 by Joanne

[Mr_Jones]

Not a new BSF school is it?

Far from it!

 

I think the 'order' was maybe chinese whispers... I'm yet to have been consulted in it!

 

With SP1 being released, it's speeded up (at least by 15% real-world apparently) so you think it may be viable? Our PC's have the guts to run it, I feel.

[Dos_Box]

TBH, Vista shouldn't really be deployed unless supported by Server 2008, and Microsoft has only just released that!

Most network guys would rater that they are happy with the back end than roll out the Vista front end without knowing or being being to control it fully.

[Mr_Jones]

TBH, Vista shouldn't really be deployed unless supported by Server 2008, and Microsoft has only just released that!

Most network guys would rater that they are happy with the back end than roll out the Vista front end without knowing or being being to control it fully.

I'll take note... and report back to the boss!

[Geoff]

I will have a 2k8 server machine to play with in the near future. When/if that works out I will introduce a Vista client to see what happens. Presuming that works, I can then look at software compatibility.

[SYNACK]

Remember softgrid when it comes to compatibility, that seems to be the main workaround that MS is pushing for compatibility as it virtualises apps. From what I've seen it seems to do an alright job of it.

[torledo]

....awaiting windows7

 

You don't 'have' to use vista. Becta have some advice on the issue:

http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=28199

 

is there a newer version of the publication, and have becta changed their previous stance on advising schools not to deploy ?

[Michael]

I don't use Vista or Windows Server 2008 in any of my domains. Dos_Box hit the nail on the head, because it makes perfect sense. Get the server/administration side sorted first, then deploy Vista...BUT, there isn't any rush at all. Windows XP still has years of life in it yet.

 

I think my next major projects will be deploying Windows Server 2008 with Windows XP SP3 clients. In the year 2020, we'll then start seeing hardware capable of running Vista at lightening speed

[mattx]

Dos_Box hit the nail on the head, because it makes perfect sense. Get the server/administration side sorted first, then deploy Vista...BUT, there isn't any rush at all. Windows XP still has years of life in it yet.

 

Agree 100% - I have been pushed by some to get it out but have point blanky refused till we go down the 2008 server route. That is we ever go down that route.

Also being pressed for Office 2007, again won't till we hit another major up-grade.

I use it personally on my workstation but that's just to annoy some of the teachers....

If I had my way we would use NT4 or even OS2/3 or 4 on a LAN Server.....

[link470]

Agree 100% - I have been pushed by some to get it out but have point blanky refused till we go down the 2008 server route. That is we ever go down that route.

Also being pressed for Office 2007, again won't till we hit another major up-grade.

I use it personally on my workstation but that's just to annoy some of the teachers....

If I had my way we would use NT4 or even OS2/3 or 4 on a LAN Server.....

 

I totally hear ya. Having only just turned 20 and Administrating the school district network people are wondering about certain changes and if they can get certain things like "oh wow do you think vistas a good move? but its very pretty" and the other half "vista sucks" and they've never touched the operating system, they just hop on the vista sucks bandwagon and have never tried it. Me personally? Sure, it's not a complete operating system, but I'm more than happy to have an XP network, I personally can't wait for the release of XP SP3, then I'll reimage all the machines with SP3 and hopefully be set for a long time.

 

XP is great, no reason for me to switch yet. Why? Just as you guys pointed out, it WORKS. The glitches are worked out, it works well with policies, it's not complicated, everyone and their dog know how to use it, let alone their fish [my fish are using BSD at home but hey give them a break ok? they live with a network security analyst], and the main thing, it will run, sure, not GREAT, but it will run, on a 300MHz PC with 128MB of ram if need be. Vista? Good game. Not gonna happen. So if we have a school here with only 900MHz machines in the district cause that's all they can afford, we can build a nice setup of XP machines that will function great on them. Bump the ram to 256? You're set, works great as a Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word machine.

 

There's simply no reason for me to switch yet. I'm happy where I am. XP is working, secure, patched, will run on legacy hardware, and people know it.

[georgebush]

As much as I don't like Vista I'm forcing myself to use it because I've finally made myself accept that it's the future. Luckily about 80% of our machines are more than capable of running it and it 'might' help the money appear to upgrade the rest. We've already tested a few computers with it and if anything it works better with Server 2003s GPOs than XP does, the main weirdness is the lack of a drop down domain box at logon and printer scripts acting a bit funky. We're planning to deploy it on a few student machines shortly to bring up any issues that students always seem to create

 

Ultimatly though it probally wont be up to us, BSF is upon us and come September we're an academy, that could easily remove all influence we have in the matter.

[Gatt]

We have rolled out Vista SP1 to one ICT Suite and so far the only issue seems to be with userlock not doing what its supposed to..

 

We'll be moving to Win2008 in Sept and if the Vista trial porves successful it'll stay in that suite only..

[bobclay]

We only have a Vista machine in the Server room for testing. After SP1 (as far as I can tell) we have encountered a problem with SIMs and it's location on the mapped 'Admin' drive. We encounter an error with connection when starting SIMs. Turn of UAC, problem disappears. The mapped drives (made by a logon batch file in Netlogon) appear and are browsable ok within Windows, but SIMs is clearly having a problem. Research tells me it is due to the mapping of drives at different elevations of user (hence with UAC off it works ok). Alternatively, (with UAD on) I can open a command window with elevated administrator privileges, enter 'net use F: \\server\admin' to essentially duplicate mapping of the SIMs drive and the problem disappears. But this is on a 'user only' basis and disappears with subsequent logins, which means doing it all again at next logon.

 

We are using Windows 2003 servers and there appears to be some issues with Vista and it's user account policies and the Domain Controller policies.

 

Just wondered if anybody else had encountered such problems.

[Michael]

I don't believe SIMS is compatible with Vista officially at the current time. I'm sure a later revision/upgrade will fix this.

[bobclay]

Appreciate your rapid reply but that isn't our understanding. Their website claim it is compatible (prior to SP1 anyway). We have worked it fine with SIMs, and providing I use the above workarounds, still does.

 

This mapped drives issue could become a problem for other software if I'm reading it right, I just wondered if anybody else had come across it.

[Guest PatBoland]

My working PC is Vista since April 2007. At first not good but now excellent.

I have rolled out 45 Vista Laptops with Office 2007 to teaching staff - problems? Yes teaching staff - they want training to use the new laptops!!

Technically no problem - Vista a little bit fussy and sometimes automatically over helpful suggesting things for you.

 

We are heading towards change - complete network and hardware - end of this year with a New School Build so have to try out the future.

[localzuk]

We won't be moving to it any time soon, if at all. It just doesn't make any sense to, as moving to it will cause more problems than it fixes.

 

If, in a few years we have to make a decision then we will not only be looking at Windows but we will look at Linux and OS X too. I don't want to be forced to move to a poorly performing OS for no good reason if there is an alternative available.

[Dos_Box]

My working PC is Vista since April 2007. At first not good but now excellent.

I have rolled out 45 Vista Laptops with Office 2007 to teaching staff - problems? Yes teaching staff - they want training to use the new laptops!!

Technically no problem - Vista a little bit fussy and sometimes automatically over helpful suggesting things for you.

 

We are heading towards change - complete network and hardware - end of this year with a New School Build so have to try out the future.

 

Does this include central imaging and license management or did you just keep the laptops as default out-of-the-box setups?

The problem I have with Vista is that to get it integrated with our networks requires quite a bit of work and much documentation is still quite sketchy and not very clear.

In short, if Microsoft continue this trend of making their products increasingly hard to deploy and administer then they may find a massive corporate backlash in the future. The current non-takeup of Vista is a good example of not just people waiting for the first service pack but them not wanting to upgrade back ends just to deploy a desktop OS and Office suite.

[torledo]

I was reading a vista sp1 article in pcrpro i think it was, and it said while some application compatability issues had been addressed, aswell as improved driver support Vista SP1 still performs WORSE than XP with SP2 on routine tasks such as copying files to usb drive. Conclusion was that SP1 was no magic bullet.

[srochford]

In short, if Microsoft continue this trend of making their products increasingly hard to deploy and administer then they may find a massive corporate backlash in the future. The current non-takeup of Vista is a good example of not just people waiting for the first service pack but them not wanting to upgrade back ends just to deploy a desktop OS and Office suite.

 

I'd agree with you but the daft thing is that MS will tell you that they've gone overboard with making it easier to deploy. No need to use Ghost any longer - you can use Imagex (free download). Server 2008 even does multicasting so you really shouldn't need Ghost at all (which is quite a saving for most places)

 

When XP first came out I sort of thought "well, it's OK but there's nothing special". I didn't have to use it for long before I started wondering how I'd ever put up with Windows 2000. Sadly, I used Vista for over 6 months and couldn't wait to get back to XP - I simply can't find the "must have" features.

 

I know I'm going to have to go to Vista at some point but I just can't see what I get from it that I can't do more or less as well with XP (and that I actually need - fancy Aero graphics don't really make it much easier to work with a spreadsheet!)

[torledo]

I'd agree with you but the daft thing is that MS will tell you that they've gone overboard with making it easier to deploy. No need to use Ghost any longer - you can use Imagex (free download). Server 2008 even does multicasting so you really shouldn't need Ghost at all (which is quite a saving for most places)

 

When XP first came out I sort of thought "well, it's OK but there's nothing special". I didn't have to use it for long before I started wondering how I'd ever put up with Windows 2000. Sadly, I used Vista for over 6 months and couldn't wait to get back to XP - I simply can't find the "must have" features.

 

I know I'm going to have to go to Vista at some point but I just can't see what I get from it that I can't do more or less as well with XP (and that I actually need - fancy Aero graphics don't really make it much easier to work with a spreadsheet!)

 

But aren't those server 2008 features such as imagex available for xp clients aswel ?

 

, if they are Vista specific then that's the best tactic for MS to get Vista takeup in the enterprise. To sell server 2008 and Vista as a corporate desktop package. Easy to roll out and easy to maintain with ZAW features exclusive to Vista+2008. I don't think the odd Vista specific group policy is going to persuade corporate IT that Vista is a must have from their point of view. The app compatibility and performance concerns would far outweight any minor benefits.

[CyberNerd]

XP gets support till 2012. Windows7 is scheduled for 2010. Windows7 is most likely modular, therefore lower spec and certainly supported by 2008 server.

Evidence mounting: Windows 7 going modular, subscription

so we may just be able to skip vista.