featured_spectre Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 One of my old places was one of the first schools to change over to Windows 7 (the suite was opened the day W7 was out). Another one switched around 6 months after Windows 7 came out. Most places I've worked switched over really quickly, not through my choice (I'd have waited personally) but hey ho.
CyberNerd Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 Rubbish, you'd still be using 2k if they'd let you If it was supported and ran the apps we need then yes. I think operating systems are overrated, particularly on this forum. Users don't really care about their operating system - they just want to get things done with minimal fuss. My primary motivation for migrating from XP is because there is better support options for applications and drivers on win7.
Arthur Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 I think operating systems are overrated Do you use decade old Linux distros as well then? e.g. Debian 3.0 and Ubuntu 4.10.
CyberNerd Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 Do you use decade old Linux distros as well then? e.g. Debian 3.0 and Ubuntu 4.10. clearly not - it's about the support and the apps. If applications, bug fixes and driver support was available then I'd happily run those. Changing operating systems causes havoc for end users who don't like change. I try and minimise disruption for end users where I can so jumping on every windows release isn't my prerogative. I'd sooner spend more time making sure applications were available to users regardless of the operating system they use.
SYNACK Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) If it was supported and ran the apps we need then yes. I think operating systems are overrated, particularly on this forum. Users don't really care about their operating system - they just want to get things done with minimal fuss. My primary motivation for migrating from XP is because there is better support options for applications and drivers on win7. Users do care when their OS is completely foreign and unprecedented to them along with looking like it came from the stone age with 16 colours. The forum may like new OSes and the enhanced managabiliy and reliability simply for the ease of management and efficiency for the schools. You definitely lean in the other direction completely dismissing the OS and attempting to push everything to external providers or services that buy into the even more clickish browser as an OS, WebKit or nothing crowd. Edited January 19, 2013 by SYNACK
SYNACK Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 clearly not - it's about the support and the apps. If applications, bug fixes and driver support was available then I'd happily run those. Changing operating systems causes havoc for end users who don't like change. I try and minimise disruption for end users where I can so jumping on every windows release isn't my prerogative. I'd sooner spend more time making sure applications were available to users regardless of the operating system they use. What about the new users, you are sacrificing these users experience to help the others from avoiding learning, as it is a school filled with young people and only a few teachers (comparitivly) are you not doing greater harm by serving the few and forcing the many to use museum antiquities for their education. Do you still teach math on abacuses and write on chalk slates. 2
CyberNerd Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 What about the new users, you are sacrificing these users experience to help the others from avoiding learning, as it is a school filled with young people and only a few teachers (comparitivly) are you not doing greater harm by serving the few and forcing the many to use museum antiquities for their education. Learning how to use an operating system is not the objective in our school. We encourage staff and students to bring in their own device and learn on whatever they feel comfortable with. My primary role is to provide access to educational applications on whatever platform they choose. If our core school owned computers run Win7 in 5 yrs time and it is secure, manageable and provides end users with the application that they need then that would be great. I would prefer staff and students spend their time learning and using the applications that we provide than where MS decide to move a launcher. I see the operating system as a platform for launching apps, and it should be as simple as possible. CHange for change sake is rarely a good thing.
CyberNerd Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 The forum may like new OSes and the enhanced managabiliy and reliability simply for the ease of management and efficiency for the schools. You definitely lean in the other direction completely dismissing the OS and attempting to push everything to external providers or services that buy into the even more clickish browser as an OS, WebKit or nothing crowd. I'm not completely dismissing operating system GUI's - but you are right that I lean towards browser based applications because I feel that their is a lot to be gained from having educational apps in a platform independent environment. I believe it is good that children can learn using ICT and if they can do this on a variety of platforms then this is also good. 1
SYNACK Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 Learning how to use an operating system is not the objective in our school. We encourage staff and students to bring in their own device and learn on whatever they feel comfortable with. My primary role is to provide access to educational applications on whatever platform they choose. If our core school owned computers run Win7 in 5 yrs time and it is secure, manageable and provides end users with the application that they need then that would be great. I would prefer staff and students spend their time learning and using the applications that we provide than where MS decide to move a launcher. I see the operating system as a platform for launching apps, and it should be as simple as possible. CHange for change sake is rarely a good thing. You're obviously not a member of the Firefox or chrome dev teams then, that is their entire modus operandi. Still if your hardware is running old versions you are still making them learn, just MS's history rather than the modern ui guidelines of what they are probably running at home. Given your views would you even support a Windows RT device or would you browser snob it and demand they use chrome under xp or an android variant. As much as I hate Apple devices I do make the pathetic things work with our gear.
CyberNerd Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 . Given your views would you even support a Windows RT device or would you browser snob it and demand they use chrome under xp or an android variant. As much as I hate Apple devices I do make the pathetic things work with our gear. I try and get apps running on as many devices as possible. If someone ever buys an RT device then it is welcome in our school along with the androids (majority), ipads, chromebooks, osx's and windows computers. Like I said - I believe apps should be as vendor neutral as possible.
SYNACK Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 (edited) I try and get apps running on as many devices as possible. If someone ever buys an RT device then it is welcome in our school along with the androids (majority), ipads, chromebooks, osx's and windows computers. Like I said - I believe apps should be as vendor neutral as possible. Fan of Java? That was their whole claim to fame, now of course it is a platform that makes exploits as vendor neutral as possible :-) It did vendor neutral better than any browser though, html5 is still an inferrior bastardised document markup language like PDF on steroids. Edited January 19, 2013 by SYNACK
Arthur Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 I lean towards browser based applications because I feel that there is a lot to be gained from having educational apps in a platform independent environment. What do your users do when... their favourite websites and browser-based apps get redesigned? e.g. Google Docs/Drive (August 2011), Gmail (November 2011), YouTube (December 2012), Facebook (September 2011), Dropbox (March 2012), Hotmail/Outlook (July 2012) etc. their favourite applications get redesigned e.g. Firefox 3.6 to 4.x (or > 20), or their OSs (ChromeOS v19 is a good example). they buy a new smartphone running Jelly Bean instead of Gingerbread or a tablet with Samsung's TouchWiz UI instead Sense/MotoBlur/Timescape/Holo? Do they freak out or just deal with it? With cloud-based solutions you have practically zero control over the front-end interface anyway. Changing operating systems causes havoc for end users who don't like change. It's completely unreasonable to expect things to stay the same forever (this applies to everything from apps and websites to OSs). Users should learn to adapt rather than be resistant to change. It will benefit them in the long run.
CyberNerd Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 I just don't upgrade OS's to every release - and nor do many of the people on this thread. This is starting to look like a personal attack now.
bgarston Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 The school have now decided with RM that they will go for the full conversion to CC4 (Hopefully with Windows 8, but looking more and more likely that it will be Windows 7) this summer. Oh god no, do yourself a favour and don't do it (CC4). I moved to school that has CC4 after working in schools with vanilla networks for 12 years....I long for the day I can work on a vanilla domain again. I hate the fact that every time an update is applied to fix one thing something else breaks, you can't fix it yourself and you are beholden to RM support at the extortionate costs they charge for annual support subscriptions! Ben
Arthur Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 We encourage staff and students to bring in their own device and learn on whatever they feel comfortable with. We are going to do this soon too, but once XP support ends where does that leave end-users who prefer this OS and are unable to (or refuse to) upgrade to something more modern? Do they get left behind?
Zoom7000 Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 Oh god no, do yourself a favour and don't do it (CC4). I moved to school that has CC4 after working in schools with vanilla networks for 12 years....I long for the day I can work on a vanilla domain again. I hate the fact that every time an update is applied to fix one thing something else breaks, you can't fix it yourself and you are beholden to RM support at the extortionate costs they charge for annual support subscriptions! Ben Err... I thought it was common knowledge around these parts that I work for RM. Also, albeit I have no experience with CC4, love it or hate it, I have no say in the matter as the LA have signed a managed service contract with RM till 2017, which is why I am an RM employee. I would love to be able to work with a vanilla network for professional development purposes, but as I said, it's not a decision that I can change.
CyberNerd Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 We are going to do this soon too, but once XP support ends where does that leave end-users who prefer this OS and are unable to (or refuse to) upgrade to something more modern? Do they get left behind? You'll end up recommending browsers and plugins. It will be up to the end user if they want to continue using XP. Chrome , Firefox and Citrix receiver are still supported on XPSP2 when this changes we'll have a few more problems.
eddyc Posted January 19, 2013 Posted January 19, 2013 We went from XP to Windows 7 over the summer, there is still the odd staff laptop running XP. No plans to look at Windows 8 until the first SP though.
FN-GM Posted January 19, 2013 Author Posted January 19, 2013 We went from XP to Windows 7 over the summer, there is still the odd staff laptop running XP. No plans to look at Windows 8 until the first SP though. There is a good chance there wont be a service pack at all.
denon101 Posted January 20, 2013 Posted January 20, 2013 We are still on xp at the moment. Basically down to the fact we have about 30-40 pcs that won't take Win 7. We are about to replace them and will be moving over to Win 7 and Office 2013 during Easter holiday's.
zag Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 We went from XP to Windows 7 over the summer, there is still the odd staff laptop running XP. No plans to look at Windows 8 until the first SP though. I think they are going to a 2 yearly release cycle so most likely the next release will be Windows 9 late next year.
Arthur Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 The next major update to Windows is due to be released mid-2013 according to the rumours (so not long to wait).
RTFM Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 We rolled out Win7 2 Summers ago now to 700~ machines at one secondary, 500~ machines at another secondary and 100~ machines at the primary we look after. No XP left at any of the sites Gotta love WDS
mwbutler Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 We have 350 XP computers and 120 W7 netbooks. The XP machines are going to be updated during term time as of next month...
Fleetwood Posted January 22, 2013 Posted January 22, 2013 (edited) We're still XP/2003 here (roughly 150 clients for the lot, that includes laptops/netbooks.) Originally the plan was to upgrade to 7/2008R2 but then my boss decided after dealing with it/setting it up at his other schools it was "a sack of $h1t" and didn't want to do Windows 7 - then of course 8 was released, so the next plan was to upgrade to that (which wouldn't have gone smoothly as we'd already bought Server08 and not 12) - now my boss has decided that Windows 8 is too "hand wavey washy/touch-screen related and all the important bits we need are hidden away" and so he's reluctantly decided to go back to upgrading to Windows 7. Don't know if I'm coming or going! To be honest I think the only reason we've been on XP for so long is because it's just so 'graphic-y' and kid friendly. When you have pupils that don't even know their surname, keeping it kid-friendly is a vital thing to have (I should point out we're a small primary.) We should hopefully be upgrading to Windows 7 at the start of the summer term, or we will do it during the summer hols. Though we've had our copy of Server 2008 since last summer and we've only just started migrating tic-tac chunks (I say we, I mean my boss. me no allow touchy ) Edited January 22, 2013 by Fleetwood
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