Many businesses have been slow to adopt Windows Vista, taking a wait and see attitude due to many reported problems with applications and hardware compatibility. The conventional wisdom, as I have mentioned in previous posts, has been to wait until the first Service Pack is released. In a PCWorld post yesterday, it was observed,
“Many believe the SP1 milestone is the one that will bring about a new wave of adoption for Vista, especially among business customers that have been awaiting the service pack’s release before updating employee desktops. The combination of SP1 and Windows Server 2008, due out on Feb. 27, is expected to bode well for Vista adoption in the enterprise and medium-sized business sectors.”
But when will it be released? In the past, Microsoft has been rather closed mouthed about actual release dates but a post yesterday in PCWorld’s blog stated that they are looking at some time this quarter (and some are even saying by February 15). The question becomes, will this Service Pack address enough concerns to jump start adoption of Vista, or will businesses decide to leapfrog to Windows 7?
As PCWorld noted in its blog back on February 20 of last year, there is certainly plenty to fix in Vista. Unfortunately, many of those problems are not being addressed, at least in the current beta release candidate of SP1. The article goes on to state,
“if you are waiting for major improvements to switch to Vista, you’d better hope that Microsoft’s SP1 development team goes into overdrive before the service pack’s official release and gives you more compelling reasons to make the jump to the OS. Vista undergoes no major overhaul with the SP1 release I looked at.”
Many businesses have been slow to adopt Windows Vista, taking a wait and see attitude due to many reported problems with applications and hardware compatibility. The conventional wisdom, as I have mentioned in previous posts, has been to wait until the first Service Pack is released. In a PCWorld post yesterday, it was observed,
“Many believe the SP1 milestone is the one that will bring about a new wave of adoption for Vista, especially among business customers that have been awaiting the service pack’s release before updating employee desktops. The combination of SP1 and Windows Server 2008, due out on Feb. 27, is expected to bode well for Vista adoption in the enterprise and medium-sized business sectors.”
But when will it be released? In the past, Microsoft has been rather closed mouthed about actual release dates but a post yesterday in PCWorld’s blog stated that they are looking at some time this quarter (and some are even saying by February 15). The question becomes, will this Service Pack address enough concerns to jump start adoption of Vista, or will businesses decide to leapfrog to Windows 7?
Tom Spring’s post states that he has tested the latest beta release of SP1, and has found that his machine works more reliably, but that he was hoping for more. Notable changes to Vista through SP1 are discussed in more detail on Microsoft’s TechNet site, but performance gains seem to be what is most touted. Unfortunately, many of these enhancements were found to be negligible in his tests, and did not improve performance on low-end PCs. As he notes, “Throw enough hardware at Vista, and it runs almost like a champ.” This alone would suggest that businesses wait until their next hardware replacement cycle to upgrade to Vista, as it will most likely not run on current hardware, even with the new service pack.Then there is Windows 7, then next version of the OS than Microsoft is developing. Microsoft is now talking about a release of this OS in late 2009, rather than 2010. Will this OS make it worth the wait for businesses? An article posted on ZDNet on January 22, written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, states that,
“while consumers and businesses alike have been eagerly waiting for SP1, it now seems that this won’t be enough to quell the constant flow of negativity. If it is true that Microsoft is pulling out the stops to get Windows 7 out of the door and onto PCs are fast as possible, this does seem to suggest that Microsoft is taking this negative feedback seriously and wants to put the Vista mistakes behind it.”
So, is Microsoft listening? If so, says Kingsley-Hughes, the following should be addressed in that OS:
- Trimming the bloat, so that the OS can run on low end machines (cheap $200-$250 systems) and older hardware;
- Fix UAC or get rid of it;
- Hardware and software compatibility;
- A better, easier to use GUI, not just something with lots of eye candy; and
- Better hardware drivers.
From all of this one might think that SP1 is being thought of by Microsoft as a Band-Aid on the wound, rather than a serious attempt at addressing deficiencies in the OS, which appear to be reserved for Windows 7.
The bottom line here is that SP1 is still in beta; nothing final has been released, so we will have to wait until then to know for sure. However, as Tom Spring observes, how much is Microsoft realistically planning to add between now and March 31? I can only continue to recommend waiting until your next hardware replacement cycle to consider Vista and, if your machines are still doing the job for you, maybe extending that cycle to the release of Windows 7 to see what that has to offer. Most attorneys can get the job done without all the latest hardware and software. If you are one of them, perhaps you should stick with what works for you before making the leap to something new. The newest thing isn’t always the best, as Vista has shown us.
Legal Technology Blog 
February 3, 2008 at 6:21 pm
People wait until SP1 to make sure that the OS has the bugs worked out, but that is one of the many, many pieces that have to fall into place for something to work out. In the case of Vista SP1 the SP isn’t going to make any of the legacy programs work on Vista, it isn’t going to solve/change the training issue and it isn’t going to address the security model. Plus, as noted in one of the articles you cited, it barely addresses the performance issues.
Putting Vista into play as part of the hardware replacement cycle is where it is at, assuming you can operate in the split environment that long (or your replacement cycle is an “all at once” approach). But for many smaller companies (like law firms), running two platforms isn’t a viable solution; the support levels won’t be where they need to be.
For organizations of a significant size Vista should’ve been in testing for at least 6 months now; for everyone else it is time to get moving. Even if you don’t deploy for another 12 months, knowing where you are headed and starting the testing now will actually make this seemingly impossible project rather feasible.
February 3, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Seth:
I agree with you that SP1 is only part of the process. In other posts I have pointed out the cost of upgrading software (like QuickBooks) to a compatible version as being a consideration and a part of the overall upgrade process. As to training, that will be a cost no matter what, and does not necessarily affect WHEN you upgrade to a new OS (although hardware upgrade cycles do).
You also raise a good point about split platforms if the upgrade cycle does not include all of the machines. Since I blog for solos and small firms, all or nothing is more prevalent.
Yes, planning the upgrade should be what any firm should be doing now, which is why I try to post on this subject periodically. SP1, hopefully, will keep the cost down with more drivers for legacy peripherals, thus minimizing the need to replace equipment that may not be a part of the cycle.
Thanks for your input!
Steve
March 24, 2008 at 4:18 pm
[…] 2008 Vista SP1 Finally Here Posted by Steven Richardson under Operating Systems In a post on January 24, 2008, I discussed whether it was better to wait for the next Microsoft Windows OS or […]
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