An Update on the Windows Roadmap

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Snakedoctor1 — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:06:49 GMT

@subzero

I am sorry but integrated video cards, make up 80+ % of the graphic cards out there in the corporate world, if not more.

Sure there are lots of people that use CAD/3D programs that could could benefit/use a dedicated video card but for every CAD user there are 10 Office users that don't need more than a x3100 or whatever the latest Intel video card is.

NVIDIA's problems with Vista was with games. In Vista its self it was fine, so joe corporate user would never see a problem with Vista/Nvidia on their day to day job. Vista/NVIDIA/CAD users well I would not know, and I dont think anyone would. We are probably talking less than 1% of 1% of all computers users with that combo running.

Vista is not a technical challenge at all for technical people. Unless you still have those dreadful slow copy sessions over the network.

Vista is a challenge for joe user, with lots of stuff moved, replaced or just gone and many times for no reason at all.

"The fault does lie on lazy IT departments and lazy developers who should have put the manpower and resources to get the Vista launch seamless." Lazy or responding to market demand? Is their customer base more XP or Vista?

"And they better get ready with Windows Seven, because I know I will be participating in the beta program." ummm they are ready right now, because Windows 7 is Vista R2. You paid to be a beta tester when you bought Vista, you get the RTM version when you pay for Windows 7.

Windows 7 will be nothing more than Vista SP2, with a few features added. The focus will over whelming be, bug fixes, and hardware/software compatibility. Of course waiting until 2010 helps MS because hardware/software vendors will have updated their drivers for Vista even more by then.

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

subzerohitman721 — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 23:18:49 GMT

@ Snakedoctor stated:

CyBrett The example of Nvidia drivers is a consumer only problem to be honest. I dont know any medium or larger company that buys desktops/notebooks with anything other than integrated graphics.

NVIDIA did not have a huge incentive to aggressively tackle their Vista problems with gamers not moving to Vista, and DX10 games being scarce. At least initially the PC gaming community, whats left of it, rejected Vista, because of the lack of DX10 games and DX9 games being slower over all. It could be changed now, I personally dont know anyone that games on a PC anymore.

My Comments...

Speaking as someone who worked for a large distributor/installer/warranty repair company of PC's in the Dallas metro area, I have to find fault with your argument.

Do you need a list of vendors who use high level graphics cards or graphics intensive CAD? How about the Dallas Independent School District? How about the Houston ISD? Irving ISD? Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD?Infact, I can pretty much say that almost every school district across the nation does. We did business with school districts nationwide. We had boxes full of ATI and nVidia graphics cards. Many of our daily service tickets were to install ATI or in some cases nVidia graphics cards because the onboard graphics cards were woefully insufficient. Sometimes In the Townview Arts/Magnet school, we would deliver several thousand computers per day to their monstrous science, bank, computer science, and mathematics labratory. They were doing everything from studying aerodyanmic theory to simulating nuclear physics. They paid us to open up their brand new Dells and insert top of the line ATI/nVidia cards.

School isn't your mom and pop's affair. They need the absolute best to be competative in the 21st century economy. We oversaw the distribution of a million computers in the time frame of 5 months. We're talking admin centers/buildings, regional centers, technical support centers, school support facilities, and the actual schools themselves.

We worked side by side with Microsoft, HP, Dell, and many other vendors. After I left, the company did started testing with Vista when beta 1 came out. They knew about the issues with Vista but prepared themselves in advance of the OS. From what I've heard from my brother who left that part of the IT business, DISD and the other districts is expected to rollout Vista in 2009.

As for the training, thanks to the Software Assurance licences we had and our TechNet Plus, our training cost were nowhere near as astronomical as you stated. I think you are inject a bit too much hyperbolie to your statements in my opinion. Vista is a technical challenge, but structure of the OS has not leaped so much that it represents a paradigm shift. The User experience isn't such a radical shift that intensive retraining is needed. As I have stated in a previous commentary, anyone who has used Windows as far back as Windows 95 will have no issues adapting to Vista. Training is costly and intensive work, but I believe the Microsoft ecosystem and local community colleges go out of their way to make it a lot less painful. Plus there are a miriad of certification testing centers across the U.S. to deal with these issues.

I think everyone and anyone is unfairly bashing Vista because its the cool thing to do. Any little excuse no matter how vague is being yelled from the mountain tops. Many studes have indicated the the total cost of ownership for Vista is much cheaper than XP. I believe even Paul has a blog on this website to show that.

People were complaining about XP security for years and Vista has delivered on security. Now we have more complaining about Microsoft. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

The fault does lie on lazy IT departments and lazy developers who should have put the manpower and resources to get the Vista launch seamless. As I've stated many times, there was 18 months from Beta 1 to the Janurary 07 launch. How much more time did they really need? That is approximately one and half year business cycle from beta to launch. There really wasn't any excuse. And they better get ready with Windows Seven, because I know I will be participating in the beta program.

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

doon120 — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:56:37 GMT

I can't help thinking about your "swiftboat" metaphor and wonder if someone is finally starting fighting back by laying down "current state".

Maybe they were waiting for Bill to go because they were concerned about his last act being a street fight with Apple. In any case, maybe this is the ranging shot before they begin to "fire for effect.". In truth they deserve to have more dynamic leadership in this area. I'll be interested to see what comes next, if anything.

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

DRWAM — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:33:24 GMT

I see Snake. What further made me think you were in medicine is that we also use SMS as our IS, which is Siemens Medical Systems. Portions were to be replaced by GE Centricity, or actually a digital HIS [hospital info system] was to be created. However at a cost of $81 million and many holes in the solutions as well as long waits for desired, needed features, our 3 hospital system [my hospital has over 420 beds] bailed out from GE. They are currently back on the market and Siemens is a contender. Glad to see that you're still alive:)

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Snakedoctor1 — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:34:23 GMT

No Doc, I am in IT, currently working for a large financial institution we will say, mostly supporting VMware ESX, specifically when it comes to Windows servers being virtualized.

RIS... en.wikipedia.org/.../Remote_Installation_Services

PXE boot. Came out with Windows 2000. Modern NIC's have the option to PXE boot and basically pull down a OS install, that has an answer file, complete with post application install. At my current company the helpdesk is 100% remote. The remote control everything via RDP, launched from a SMS console. If they cant fix your problem then they have you reboot and PXE boot to pull down the latest XP build from out RIS servers.

If you dont have a RIS server local to your location, you get mailed CD's with the latest build. WDS or Windows Deployment Services is the next step in evolution for RIS. WDS uses .mif files (microsoft image file?) vs scripted install of RIS, so its also faster. ADS is popular as well among the server deployment groups, since it has sequenced install that allows you more customization but I hear MS is going to get rid of ADS in favor of WDS, even though someone told me WDS is not as powerful as ADS.

I dont do desktop deployments, or have not done them in some years, so I am not totally up to speed on it. I have a few colleges that do that on a day to day basis. I was on our Vista Pilot, from Beta 2 until Jan of 07, when it was decided that it would be delayed because of deployment costs. Basically to many IT projects and not enough IT, and Vista was not even on the tier 2 project list let alone the tier 1. Office 2007 just became an option not 30 days ago, but even there if you have certain programs interact with emai, mostly having to do with Outlook 2007, they wont work in our environment so those users cant update yet.

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Joshu4 — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:39:19 GMT

I'm keeping an eye out for Zune 3.0 infomation....

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

DRWAM — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:27:39 GMT

Snake, I thought you were dead [Escape from NY]. Seriously, since you mention SMS and RIS, which is our acronym for Radiology Information System, are you in the field, I mean a Radiologist?

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Waethorn — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:21:32 GMT

"From a CIO standpoint pushing it back a year can some serious money." (I think you mean *costs serious money*?)

Here's a question for ya: How much money do you lose by pushing deployment into the extended support lifecycle rather than deploying it during the free standard support cycle?

"So no new "killer" feature for the business world that could save tons of money in the end Vista is a no go for many."

"a large department that is very busy keeping builds up to date with patches, drivers"

"automated deployment with imaging products like ghost back in the day, use of SMS. RIS, and the new Vista Image methods are great tools with out a doubt."

Actually, Windows Vista/2008 uses WDS as the deployment services engine. RIS is only for legacy images. Also, I guess you don't realize that Vista/2008 images can be made with device-independent HAL's, so the imaging process is much more efficient, and easier to service.

....I would say based on your argument, that deployment hassles and security are the two main reasons why your company should consider it.

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re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Snakedoctor1 — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:17:01 GMT

"You also failed to read my point about planning and building a lab environment for building case-studies on deployment. You should read Microsoft's documentation on the Deployment Toolkit, as it has a complete methodology to each stage in the deployment process, divided up by teams, each designated to a particular task."

No I just did not get into it. I addressed only one item in more detail. Training.

I have been supporting Windows products for over 18 years in the corporate world. I am well aware of their tools. Labs are good, automated deployment with imaging products like ghost back in the day, use of SMS. RIS, and the new Vista Image methods are great tools with out a doubt. Although we like to call SMS 2003 "satans management system" where I work. 2007 is a tad better. Its all good, and has gotten much better over time.

That said our desktop deployment team that supports over 100k XP desktops is a large department that is very busy keeping builds up to date with patches, drivers, and new software for client desktops. All of it is tested for compatibility and deployment. Hardware/software products go through testing before they are certified. Changing the whole OS out and how its deployed, and tested with existing/new hardware/software is a huge project and it will cost a lot of money. From a CIO standpoint pushing it back a year can some serious money. So no new "killer" feature for the business world that could save tons of money in the end Vista is a no go for many.

I think Vista has much greater potential to help consumers. The #1 problem for XP in the consumer world is malware, and the #1 reason is that XP users run as administrators. Corporations have taken care of the malware problem with XP, if they know what they are doing, (firewalls, poxy's, AV, SPAM, limited users, strict users policies...etc) so the incentive to go to Vista for that reason is not there.

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Snakedoctor1 — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:02:57 GMT

I highly doubt that any real business makes strategic IT business decisions based on the consumer acceptance of Vista. They make it hopefully based upon fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders, ie Cost > Value.

If it were based on the popularity of consumer computer products, MS would be bankrupt and Macs's would be everywhere.

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Snakedoctor1 — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:00:05 GMT

"WTF are you smokin???!" 5 seconds with google gave me

tech.yahoo.com/.../92615

from another in 12/07

""Vista has shown a small increase in representation, but clearly nowhere near where Microsoft would have desperately hoped. Previously 7.99% of gamers were using the latest operating system. Now it's 16.91%, with a vast 81.13% sticking with XP. Rather confirming Valve's position on DX10, and what a massive waste of time it is developing for Vista only."

arstechnica.com/.../20080220-creation-of-pc-gaming-alliance-leaves-unanswered-questions.html

"While the group seems to have a solid grasp of what's wrong with PC gaming, it didn't put forth any compelling ideas about what to do about them. It's also unclear why consumers should trust a group composed of members that have much to gain by presenting only certain kinds of information. While many would argue that XP is, at the moment, the better OS for gaming, would Microsoft allow the PCGA to say so? "

I could spend another 20 seconds on it if you would like??

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Waethorn — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:38:57 GMT

"NVIDIA did not have a huge incentive to aggressively tackle their Vista problems with gamers not moving to Vista, and DX10 games being scarce. At least initially the PC gaming community, whats left of it, rejected Vista, because of the lack of DX10 games and DX9 games being slower over all. It could be changed now, I personally dont know anyone that games on a PC anymore."

WTF are you smokin???!

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

CyBrett — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:38:52 GMT

Snakedoctor,

The point I was trying to make was that the consumer market is what gave Vista a bad rap. Therefore businesses were making decisions based on the bad experiences of consumers. I think gamers more so didn't adopt Vista because they couldn't get it for free/pirated. The problem with gaming on Vista wasn't necessarilly DX9, but more a lack of support for OpenGL.

re: An Update on the Windows Roadmap

Waethorn — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:37:52 GMT

@Snakedoctor:

The training I'm referring to is included with Software Assurance. They offer online training sessions for UI changes and such for Windows, Office, and several other software packages from Microsoft. Those can be done by users during off hours even before deployment to discover how they do common things in the new software versions. Office 2007 is a prime poster-child of why Software Assurance training is beneficial. It's also a much more requested software upgrade for companies than Windows Vista, even though the changes in it are more radical than the change from XP to Vista.

The training you're talking about is done by IT, where they go to a training seminar, take notes, and then plan an in-house session with employees. New employees have to be trained on software anyway, so this isn't anything new. Software Assurance comes with redemption coupons for classroom seminars and is intended for those that will be doing the end-user training.

Software Assurance also comes with 1:1 home use licenses. What better way for an employee to learn how to use a product than to take home a copy and "play" with it.

Also, new deployment techniques for Windows Server 2008 and Vista are not only simpler, but the concepts are easier to grasp. PC management is also leaps and bounds where it was 8 years ago. For a good example, take a look at the System Center family of apps. If you take the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and/or SCCM/SMS, it's completely automated deployment and management. You certainly couldn't say that a few years back. Remote management and managed services are also much more prevalent now than previously. Proper IT workers and help-desk personnel make very few desk-side visits nowadays.

You also failed to read my point about planning and building a lab environment for building case-studies on deployment. You should read Microsoft's documentation on the Deployment Toolkit, as it has a complete methodology to each stage in the deployment process, divided up by teams, each designated to a particular task.

technet.microsoft.com/.../default.aspx