When do you or the company you work for upgrade an OS?

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I have noticed there are a lot of differences in the way individuals and companies choose to upgrade to a new release of an OS.

The poll is not OS specific. If you or the company do it differently depending on OS, then please explain.

You can vote for more than one option.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

As an individual, I only do some testing. I only use a Linux distro for my own computer use. I also do not feel compelled to upgrade to every release.

The company I work for uses both Microsoft and Linux OS's. The company does a lot of testing; however, more testing for Microsoft (at least a year) than for a Linux distro (a month or so).

[amingv]

I have noticed there are a lot of differences in they way individuals and companies choose to upgrade to a new release of an OS.

The poll is not OS specific. If you or the company do it differently depending on OS, then please explain.

You can vote for more than one option.

Hey! There's no option for "before it comes out"!

Individual: It really depends on many things, I haven't noticed some form of standard behavior in myself.

Company: When it's stable or if it fixes some critical bug, and if it works well with the software the company uses. Point in case: the company's computers are still on XP.

[RandomJoe]

At home: "When I want to."

Sometimes that's when (or even before) the latest comes out. Sometimes I won't upgrade a machine for several years because what I have on there does what I want it to do.

At work: "When I have to."

This is almost always well after the "well-tested" phase. We'll let everyone else using the software we use figure out all the bugs, and generally an upgrade is associated with replacing the hardware, and the previous version is no longer available.

In the case of a Linux file server I take care of (I'm not an IT guy, just the only one knowlegeable / motivated enough to bother...!) I upgraded it when something I wanted to do with the machine required newer software. It was about time anyway, as support was about to run out on the old OS version.

[ZankerH]

Individual, depending on the machine's purpose.

Offline backup boxes: Never (Fedora Core 5 and Debian Sarge, yay)

File/web/everything else servers: All of mine are currently running Arch, so when I see there's an upgrade up, I'll usually check the RSS and the forums, and if there's nothing apparently wrong, I'll install it.

Main desktop: Runs ubuntu, I usually upgrade just before or shortly after the beta is out.

Laptops/Netbooks: Run Mandriva or eeebuntu. Upgraded when the new version is officially released.

[lisati]

Individual: It really depends on many things, I haven't noticed some form of standard behavior in myself.

Company: When it's stable or if it fixes some critical bug, and if it works well with the software the company uses. Point in case: the company's computers are still on XP.

Sounds a bit like me, a mixture of "If it aint broke, why fix it?" and "Why not give it a go?"

I even have one machine with Win98SE on it!

[amingv]

I even have one machine with Win98SE on it!

Admiting you have a problem is the first step towards recovery :).

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Company: When it's stable or if it fixes some critical bug, and if it works well with the software the company uses. Point in case: the company's computers are still on XP.

Most of the computers at work that use Microsoft are still running XP. As a manager, I have to run Microsoft one one of my computers because of business applications. The company will be replacing my 2.5 year old computer running XP in January. It will probably have Vista; however, I am asking to be part of the test group that gets Windows 7. :D

[The Funkbomb]

My company still uses XP.

Personally, I look at the features the new software is offering. I was happy with 9.04 but 9.10 had some cool stuff I wanted to check out so I went for it.

[CharlesA]

The company I work for has never upgraded since I've been here. I think the only thing they've upgraded is a couple systems but they are owned by a different company (we manage the software/servers for them). Most of our machines are running 2000 or XP since they would die with Vista/W7.

Unfortunately Linux is out of the question as well, since 90% of our apps run on Windows only. >.<

[gn2]

I work for this mob (http://www.networkrail.co.uk/), we use Xp and AFAIK will not be using Vista, might switch to W7 at some stage or maybe wait till its successor, no decision has been made yet.

[siimo]

We live on the bleeding edge at my work.

Upgraded to Vista about a month after it hit RTM. (before it was retail)
Upgraded to Windows 7 about a month and a half ago.

At home I upgraded to Slackware 13.0 2 days after it came out.

[forrestcupp]

If I can get my hands on a beta, that's when I install it, whether it's Windows or Linux. Sometimes in Ubuntu I'll try out some of the later alphas.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I work for this mob (http://www.networkrail.co.uk/)

When I travel, I hope the software has been tested well. I would hate to see a BSOD when on the tube or train.

:lolflag::lolflag::lolflag:

[gn2]

Software?
I'm still using technology from the industrial revolution.

http://www.signalbox.org/gallery/sc/inverurie.htm

[RabbitWho]

The man I work for doesn't know what an OS is, when a computer stops working he buys a new one with the money his wife earned.
So I reckon they'll have XP forever... well until it get's tired and the perfectly good computer is thrown in a skip. I should give them my number when I leave actually, i could take it off their hands for free!

[Aearenda]

I always install a new Ubuntu release in a separate partition so I can dual boot with the previous release. I usually do this when the beta comes out, so I can bug things that affect me with some chance of it being fixed for release. With Karmic I went with Alpha 4. I switch to it as soon as everyday core activities such as suspend/hibernate, email, calendaring, web, music, and photo import are solid. I retain the previous release for some time so I can drop back again if I need to. I had to do that twice with Intrepid, but Jaunty and Karmic have been good for my hardware, and I have used Karmic every day since beta.

For work, I only deploy LTS releases, and usually not until about 3 months after release. I use dual-booting there too, so reverting to the previous release is really easy.