Why Windows 7 When XP "Won't Die"

[6Foot2]

This evening I read this article:

 

Windows XP forever? The OS that just won't die

 

I found the opening lines interesting:

 

Windows XP is too good for its own good.

It needs to die for the company's sake.

It won't die because nothing else -- not even Windows 7 -- currently approaches it.[/Quote]

 

and later on:

 

...many friends and colleagues with whom I associate are quietly ignoring Windows 7, and hoping to stick with XP for as long as their current hardware holds out.[/Quote]

 

and a comment after the article:

 

I'm waiting to see Windows 8, Win 7 doesn't do it for me, nor did Vista. Perhaps Windows 8 will show something new, other than glitz.[/Quote]

 

I read it with interest. What do you make of it?

[cookie_monster]

It's such a big leap, at work 2k to XP was ok but to Vista/7 will be a pain so people are avoiding it. At home XP does everything that people need something looking pretty is a bonus (unless you're a Mac owner) so if you buy a new box with 7 on then fine but most people won't pay for a bit of eye candy especialy as at the end of the day the OS doesn't do much it's your apps that count.

 

It won't take long now for MS to stick the knife in remember 2K, no IE7 no Office 2007 and many management tools the list goes on they just eventualy force your hand. Unless of course you start talking Open Office and so on but that's not what this thread is about.

 

Although Microsoft obviously recognizes that $300 netbooks and $400-to-$500 mainstream laptops mean the good old days of high margin OS sales are over, it still wants us to add Windows 7 to our wish list to continue to drive its Windows revenue stream, albeit at a reduced rate

 

This is exactly why MS and Intel want to upsell and stop this seemingly endles price collapse.

Edited August 6, 2009 by cookie_monster

[CyberNerd]

XP currently runs all of our school apps. There is support for the next 5yrs.

Educational applications are getting moved towards web VLE based upon open standards - they are generally cheaper and easier to install en mass.

 

If/When it looks like there is going to be an actual business case to switch then I might think about it, I currently don't see one.

 

So I'm not exactly in a rush to install windows 7 - but I'm feeling smug that I managed to completely avoid vitsta

[cookie_monster]

@ CyberNerd - my sentiments exactly. Not to mention the fact that i'm just about to take delivery of 40 Axel devices for our Citrix setup

[6Foot2]

Educational applications are getting moved towards web VLE based upon open standards - they are generally cheaper and easier to install en mass.

 

I have a presentation to deliver next week and it looks like my talk will be leaning in this direction. Early days yet though as I am still only in the planning stages.

[featured_spectre]

We just bought a suite of PCs which will be W7 and attached to a Win Server 2k8R2, and the staff laptops are now on W7 also. Simply for the fact that we are the pilot school in our area through our own choice. If it cocks up, then so be it but after the extensive testing we have yet to come across a problem thus far, whatever W7 cant run, the Win XP Mode can. Simple!

[dhicks]

many friends and colleagues with whom I associate are quietly ignoring Windows 7, and hoping to stick with XP for as long as their current hardware holds out.

 

Heck, I'm sticking with XP for as long as everyone else's hardware holds out, never mind our own - at this rate we'll be able to get hold of second-hand equipment at knock-down prices for years to come. Give it five years and no one will even remember what an OS is, they'll just use the web browser for everything.

 

--

David Hicks

[Number6]

We just bought a suite of PCs which will be W7 and attached to a Win Server 2k8R2, and the staff laptops are now on W7 also. Simply for the fact that we are the pilot school in our area through our own choice. If it cocks up, then so be it but after the extensive testing we have yet to come across a problem thus far, whatever W7 cant run, the Win XP Mode can. Simple!

 

Except that SIMS is not officially supported on W7 and won't be until next Easter!

 

It runs fine, except for 'system' but the trouble is that if (when) we run into a problem, whether OS related or not, Capita will see W7 and say 'not our problem matey' and then we're in the shite! Hence we have no option but to stick with XP even though we're replacing almost our entire PC fleet this summer and installing Server 2008.

 

It's a total pain because by the time Capita get their arses into gear it will be the Devil's own job for us to upgrade to W7.

[CyberNerd]

Except that SIMS is not officially supported on W7 and won't be until next Easter!

 

Sooner or later capita will realise that they need to disentangle SIMS from the operating system....

[featured_spectre]

our SIMS PCs will be the only ones that are not running W7, they'll stay on XP until it gets supported.

[CyberNerd]

our SIMS PCs will be the only ones that are not running W7, they'll stay on XP until it gets supported.

 

Don't you find that a mixed environment just doubles your costs?

[Quackers]

I'll continue to use XP until the end. It just "works".

 

You can put Windows Vista in a nice dress and put lipstick on and call it Windows 7, but its still awful once you get underneath.

 

I'd rather use Windows 2000 than Vista or 7, its more efficent at getting jobs done!!

[featured_spectre]

Don't you find that a mixed environment just doubles your costs?

 

not at all, we have covercard support that supports from Win 98 / NT4 - Win 7 / Win Serv 2K8R2 and our licences cover us for everything up to Win7, so no added cost at all

[CyberNerd]

not at all, we have covercard support that supports from Win 98 / NT4 - Win 7 / Win Serv 2K8R2 and our licences cover us for everything up to Win7, so no added cost at all

 

I meant in tech time, not licensing. you must do things very differently from us - but we have standardised images for all 'groups' of computers. I couldn't imagine needing to ask staff if they had XP or W7 - it would be a nightmare from a support (cost) perspective.

[featured_spectre]

ahh I see what you mean.

 

Well I have images for various departments. Each Dept has an image of XP (and relevant softwares), Vista (and relevant softwares) and soon W7 (and relevant softwares). All have stayed away from vista because its rubbish, however there is going to be a mass exodus to W7 when I have finished the images. lol

[ZeroHour]

You can put Windows Vista in a nice dress and put lipstick on and call it Windows 7, but its still awful once you get underneath.

LOL that seems rather harsh and baseless. It really is much better then vista and the new stuff vista/7 added over xp is really good, the things that were annoying that required hacking are simpler. We are skipping vista but I see no reason not to move to 7 and the enhancements will be worth it. There is this image huge amounts does not work with vista/7 but most things I have tested are fine and the rest just need some app compat setttings applied at worst or just a newer version.

[CyberNerd]

LOL that seems rather harsh and baseless. It really is much better then vista

 

From someone who made the xp -> Linux jump a few years back : what am I missing from Vista to W7? I don't care about the difference between XP - I found a better alternative to XP already. I never saw the advantage to vista - what is the advantage to W7?

[SYNACK]

Hell, I went to Vista site wide and will be going to 7 eventually. Vista works fine for us and has actually reduced the support burden for many of the machines because Vista has built in install sources even a totalled bunch of sectors on a hard drive will not stop it. I had a teacher complain that a funny message came up about the hard drive and it was slow. Turned out that the HD was slowly dieing taking out system files and all sorts. This resulted in a slightly longer boot time as Vista restored itself without intervention.

 

Drivers are fantastic as vast amounts are included and a huge percentage of those that aren't just download automagicly from windows update after install. The group policy is implemented way better and is much more comprehensive which makes management easier and stuff like powersettings just work unlike XP. The install method is also fantastic when dealing with lots of machines off one image. Wireless and file sync are also hugely upgraded and more reliable / faster.

 

All of this and more carries over to Windows 7, from a managment point of view both are totally superior to XP and so short of abject fear of change or a justifyable aversion to spending any money it makes little sense not to look at moving foward.

[Arthur]

I definitely agree with Synack. Windows 7 is so much better than XP. Don't let the luddites hold us back.

 

Compared to XP, why would you not want things such as...

* Easier deployment. Especially being able to create hardware-independent images so you can have one image for all computers in the school, plus integrating drivers and hotfixes into an image without having to recreate it is great too. Being able to boot the operating system from a .vhd file is pretty cool as well.

* Drivers for the latest hardware built in. Not having to search for drivers either saved on the network or on the Internet is a massive time saver.

* The ability to install Windows using a USB flash drive. Particularly useful if you have computers without CD/DVD drives like netbooks. Also good, is being able to load SATA controller drivers from something other than a floppy disk!

* Better security inc. a much less annoying UAC. This should force developers (particular those who create educational software) to create programs which work properly under limited user accounts.

* The ability to encrypt your HDDs/removable media and manage them through AD/Group Policy (for free).

* An operating system that actually makes use of all of your RAM, especially if you have 4GB or more. Starting with Vista, this has helped make 64-bit software/drivers more common place.

* Support for > 2TB hard disks inc. booting from them (if the motherboard uses EFI) and improved support for solid state disks. Within 1-2 years I reckon all laptops will come with SSDs as standard.

* A built-in search tool on the start menu/in Windows Explorer and 'Libraries' to group similar content.

* Federated search. This enables you to search websites like Flickr, Bing, TechNet (and many others) directly in Windows Explorer.

* Taskbar jump lists for accessing frequently used files and controlling applications.

* Faster boot up and shutdown times. Hibernating and standby are also much quicker.

* Better power saving and energy efficiency features.

* More resilient to hard disk problems. Not having to deal with BSODs with unmountable boot volume or corrupt registry errors is nice.

 

Personally, after using Windows 7 I wouldn't want to go back to XP. The sooner it gets killed off the better!

Edited August 7, 2009 by Arthur

[ajbritton]

our SIMS PCs will be the only ones that are not running W7, they'll stay on XP until it gets supported.

 

I'm sure you know this but just to state it for anyone else reading this thread, Windows 7 has something called 'XP Mode' which allows a copy of Windows XP to run on a Virtual Machine in the background and host applications that just won't work on 7. Modern PCs have plenty of power to do this.

 

Interestingly though, Microsoft views XP mode as 'the last resort'. The application compatibility layers are usually enough to get most software working.

 

I agree, however, that Capita should at least publish a timeframe to say that W7 will be supported within 6 months of general availability.

 

My job no longer involves installing/supporting PCs and Infrastructure in schools, but if it did, I would be salivating at the thought of ditching XP in favour of W7 hooked up to 2008R2 servers. The enhanced group policy settings are very enticing although it would be death of my trusty old logon scripts.

[ajbritton]

* Better security inc. a much less annoying UAC. This should force developers (particular those who create educational software) to create programs which work properly under limited user accounts.

 

I do wonder about this with all the app compatibility stuff the MS have built in. My udnerstanding is that if an app tries to misbehave, W7 simply 'virtualizes' the calls so that in most cases the app silently succeeds (e.g. writes to HKLM, %ProgramFiles% etc).

 

I agree that educational software if some of the worst designed from a system point of view; probably because so much has been developed by ex-teachers... The design guidelines from Microsoft (you know, don't write to HKLM, %ProgramFiles% etc) has been available on the MS website for many years. There really is no excuse for any user application software needing PowerUser let alone Admin rights. As someone who used to spend a lot of time repackaging application, it really gets to me

[Michael]

At the moment I can understand why some users would ask this question. You can use IE8 and MP11 on XP, just as you can on Windows Vista and Windows 7, but I think in the next 12 months or so Microsoft will inevitably release new versions of their applications. Remember XP now officially is in an extended support phase upto the year 2014 so only security updates will now be released.

 

Some users may choose to use FF or of course iTunes for example and this would extend the life of XP further using alternative applications. Yesterday I worked on a Vista desktop which (for an unknown reason) was stuck in a loop attempting to remove a failed installation of a service pack. To cut a long story short I couldn't fix the problem, so I backed up the user data and performed a new Vista installation.

 

Installing Vista itself was relatively quick, but applying service packs was extremely long winded taking almost an hour each to apply. The results however were fairly impressive with Vista SP2 and I am personally more confident in Windows 7.

 

I wouldn't recommend anyone to jump into a Windows 7 deployment immediately. Testing is always required and it's important to get the server side of things setup before deploying Windows Vista/Windows 7. You can of course use 2003 Server and Windows 7 together, but it could create a lot more work.

[synaesthesia]

And looking at it from curriculum based systems including CC4 W7 should be a godsend too. XP is now well over 7 years old and it still suffers from the biggest bug in Windows that should have never existed in the first place. And it still exists.

 

"I'm trying to install this hardware that has previously been installed. Please direct me to the drivers. I've provided you a browse dialogue to point me to them."

 

* stares straight at the driver within the automatically opened dialogue box, clicks it and presses OK*

 

"Thank you. Drivers installing."

 

Many people with Digital Blue and other types of USB camera will appreciate that

 

That's one of the reasons why XP *needs* to die. The article from the OP really does seem to be more than a little misinformed. I'll agree once it's up and running, it's rather good but on any modern system if 7 or even Vista is running any worse than XP, you've got a problem outside of the OS. Plus of course security - I suspect the average techy spends most of their life patching XP.

[Number6]

I've been running W7 on two test PCs and a laptop ever since Beta was released. It's a dream of an OS (well, for MS anyway). Stuff just works, much like stuff 'just works' on a Mac.

 

The only incompatibilities we've found are SIMS (because Capita's product development is rubbish - system doesn't even work on Vista without patching) and some of the more screwy educational software, most of which is rubbish even on XP. Even SIMS will run on 7, our problem is the support side - if you have an issue then Capita just won't help you if you're running on a non-supported OS! As all our staff will be using SIMS at classroom level from September then we're stuufed.

 

But in general, those who are saying XP is still the way to go are really burying their heads in the sand. W7 is light years removed from XP and has been a dream to support so far - not even found any major issues running W7 as a client to Server 2003.

 

It's about time Capita got real, after all they've had many months now to get drivers coded for W7, there's just no excuse, especially at the prices they charge! It would also be nice if writers of educational software also generally got their act together and realised that BBC micros are no longer used in schools!

[Number6]

Just had a message from Capita. They're working on making SIMS compatible with W7 now - allegedly.