New OS down at the office

[Brunellus]

....and it's not Ubuntu.

IT guys are rolling out winXP at my office over the next few weeks. I guess the win2k licence/support contracts are done, and it'll be a general upgrade: new drive images for everybody!

The "distro" will include some new XP version of Office.

I wasn't exactly hoping that we'd go all-GNU, but I do happen to know that we also run Solaris and FreeBSD in the server room.

oh well.

[towsonu2003]

IT guys are rolling out winXP at my office over the next few weeks. I guess the win2k licence/support contracts are done, and it'll be a general upgrade: new drive images for everybody!

They did the same here. I guess 2k's support cycle (updates) is about to end or something.

IT here installed McAfee 8 and it kills me!

[DigitalDuality]

What a stupid stupid move IMO.

And no this isn't MS bashing. If they wished to stick with Windows they should've done the XP thing a while ago. Nice of them now to decide to go the XP route about a year (supposedly) before vista drops. heh. XP is already 6 years old just about.

[briancurtin]

What a stupid stupid move IMO.

And no this isn't MS bashing. If they wished to stick with Windows they should've done the XP thing a while ago. Nice of them now to decide to go the XP route about a year (supposedly) before vista drops. heh. XP is already 6 years old just about.
your idea is even more stupid in a lot of cases. nobody should move to XP until their company/industry is ready to, and for some places, that time is probably arriving. for some, the budget is finally rising for them to upgrade. vista is not even being looked at for most organizations for quite a while, and thats not because its MS, its because its new and it makes no sense to build critical systems of any level on something brand new.

are you suggesting that they should have waited and moved to vista on the first day it comes out, or are you more set on them having moved to XP a few years ago?

[mozetti]

We did the XP roll-out about a year ago in my office - with the new Office XP. I have to say, I do like the new version of Office. Of course, we don't take advantage of all the nice things like shared workspaces & collaboration - maybe someday. But, for me, the interface is nice and I find myself using the new task pane (or whatever it might be called) alot. It's nice to have it right there.

[DigitalDuality]

your idea is even more stupid in a lot of cases. nobody should move to XP until their company/industry is ready to, and for some places, that time is probably arriving. for some, the budget is finally rising for them to upgrade. vista is not even being looked at for most organizations for quite a while, and thats not because its MS, its because its new and it makes no sense to build critical systems of any level on something brand new.

are you suggesting that they should have waited and moved to vista on the first day it comes out, or are you more set on them having moved to XP a few years ago?
not by any means. Hell i don't even reccomend most home users to switch OSes as soon as the new version comes out.

I just think it's bad timing to move on to an OS that's about to be phased out. Some better planning could've probably been made on their end that makes fiscal sense, some time ago and wasn't.

[Orunitia]

I just think it's bad timing to move on to an OS that's about to be phased out.

Isn't Windows 98 still being supported? XP is gonna be supported for a long while to come.

[briancurtin]

yeah, MS isnt going to stop supporting XP for a while. is windows 2000 even past its end-of-life yet?

[MenZa]

A few reasons could be...

1) The company can't afford to send their employees to a Linux course
2) They're ignorant about it

I mean, explaning #1:
It's a bit of a challenge for a Windows user to do several things in Linux -- most of us have transitioned like that, and alot of us have had problems and issues along the way.
A way of solving this is to send the employees on a certified course, but it's expensive and they'd be lacking manpower. One reason to choose XP which they're all familiar with.

Number #2:
Hey -- if everyone knew how well Linux worked, I'm sure more people would use it.

[briancurtin]

i absolutely hate when people think windows-based companies are just going to suddenly move every machine to linux. i love linux as much as the next guy, but to call a company ignorant about moving from windows 2000 up to XP because linux might work, is dare i say it, ignorant.

[Brunellus]

staff retraining here would be terrible, not to mention the violence of a secretaries' revolt.

I'm working with people who are far far FAR from computer-literate.

[bjweeks]

2) They're ignorant about it


Your kidding right?