Someone please tell me what legislators need besides reference and communication out of their computers. [Gov. servers aside, which still can run fine with linux.]

Really, spending time and taxpayer money on such things is a waste of resources, but if they really want to make a change, open-source concepts could go far into influencing the government in a good way. Everyone working together for a common purpose, with varying levels of expertise, even if you can only chime in to say, "this doesn't work right," you're helping.

With any rollout, there will be difficulties, but the update and upgrade processes are less headachey, I've found, with linux. Should we start from scratch, linux would be even easier a choice, I think.

/linuxfanboyism

www.google.com

MMMMMMM... Windows 7 Kool-Aid. Windows 7 will fix everything with its magical seven of happiness. Its glorious seven will even make third party vendors behave differently. It will also add 64-bit support that will work well enough that OEMs won't still install only the 32-bit OS on 64-bit CPUs (the way they do today with Vista)! Yay Windows 7!

@Firesoul1: Is that supposed to be a poem?

guys - that costs money, taxpayer money.

Why would you do that IF there are alternatives that don't require you to spend all that money?

Or maybe Texas isn't going through a downturn like the rest.

@Trey Mahaffey: Irony, sarcasm, it's all good.

And thanks for playing.

(Does anybody even remember that?)

Of course, you never specifically stated that they should switch; however, your smug attitude and ConFlickerSnickerâ„¢ do hint that implication. Since it is understood that they will *never* install linux, then the point of your post is simply self-edification; i.e. making yourself feel better.

I feel the same urges; whenever people post comments regarding their debt, I snicker and acquire a smug attitude since I'm debt-free. However, I keep it to myself. Yes; sometimes I fail, and post my smugness, only to regret my caviler attitude; for it helps nobody but myself.

To post such comments is a selfish, non-helpful act. I hope you can recognize it as such in the future, and refrain from this counter-productive behavior.

If Vista is outlawed, only outlaws will have Vista.

Holy crap. Stop blaming Microsoft for HP/Canon/Epson/et al's laziness, stupidity, and greed.

It isn't Microsoft's fault that third-party companies refuse to update drivers. MS includes a *large* number of drivers with the OS, but they can only include what the manufacturers offer them, or previously-provided drivers which work with the new OS.

Try getting your ATI card working properly in Ubuntu, or convincing SUSE to properly interface with your software-DSP modem.

If you're not willing to blame the Linux developers when hardware doesn't work properly, stop blaming MS.

@Matt: exactly...

I didn't make claims you were uneducated or incompetent, merely that you hadn't done your research on Vista. Just because you're not upgrading now doesn't mean you never will. Clinging to the popular rumors that Vista is "buggy" or "slow" or "incompatible" doesn't make a good case for you. Most of the people I've seen "dissing" Vista wouldn't even recognize it if they were using it. The key to staying sharp in IT is always being 2 steps ahead.

Most people have no pressing justification to upgrade to Vista, but 7 shows distinct promise depending on how it's rolled out. Don't be left behind.

Not saying you should move to Vista necessarily, but moving away from time consuming client installations and simply maintaining a farm of citrix servers or TSs or even VMware desktop environment is much simpler.

The big issue here is third parties that are LAZY and unwilling to keep their crap up to date.

nVidia, ATI, Realtek, Marvell, Atheros etc.... driver developers usually do a good job.

Now HP, Epson, Konica MInolta... Shame on them. They only support back for one or two years. Yeah you can use the built in drivers from Microsoft, but they usually are basic PCL or PS drivers.

Integrated software vendors have been very lazy (Fedex Ship manager is a good example, which is STILL IN BETA FOR VISTA). Medical, automotive shop and law office software are good examples.

Windows 7 will change that however. I think the 3rd party vendors will do a better job.

I'd really like to see the state of Texas purchase new computers with XP on them. At the moment it can only be legitimately purchased on a new computer, by buying a netbook that's only capable of XP and not Vista. The way this rider is written appears to rule out the Vista Ultimate end-run, since Vista Ultimate is a "Vista product." (Someone with a V.U. license can "downgrade" to XP if desired.)

Like most state legislators in the US, Hinojosa appears to be a grandstanding idiot who -- merely by virtue of being in office -- is claiming expertise in things he has no clue about, and deciding state policy based on his own idiocy. We need less of that, not more.

Ummmm, just how many of the users could install windows? Even if they were given a step by step click-here manual?

Hell, let's say the PC already has windows installed (by installed I mean it just rebooted from the final part of the CD installer). Just how many could get the drivers working so they can have more than 256 colours, any sort of sound, printer drivers, etc?

Look, the people whose job it is to be installing the PCs and setting up all the crap on them would be the ones setting up Linux/whatever. If they can't do it, they are incompetent and don't deserve their jobs. The vast majority of hardware can have a basic Linux install done in a half-hour. The weird hardware that doesn't work in Linux isn't anymore of a treat in windows, either, since it's usually abandoned junk.

The one major benefit for any company/school/whatever using Linux is uniformity. You can lock that crap down to the point the user can't do ANYTHING but what you want them to do. And I mean seriously, it can be made impossible for users to edit things they should not what with built in whole disk encryption and whatnot.

Yay, another Mac admin. I thought I was the only one in the world (sarcastic).

At our medium sized law office we still rely on Mac OS 9 for certain applications. One secretary hates Word for Mac and won't even use Word for Windows XP.

I am planning on upgrading our office to Windows 7 after a service pack comes out. We have modern Socket AM2+ systems running XP with 4GB of ram each. XP runs great combined with our SBS 2003 R2 box.

OSX Server however is a pain in the ass. I can't upgrade us to Leopard server because we have all these legacy OS9 documents. Leopard will also run like crap on our PM G4 systems though, which means new Macs (not going to happen, budget is too small).

One suggestion:

You could run "Sheepshaver", which is a PowerPC emulator for Mac OS X. It can run up to 9.04. It doesn't support network printing however and won't work for some apps because they require the Cross-platform os9/osx code (carbon apps).

If you run Tiger on the client PowerPC machines and have them controlled by a OSXServer Open Directory server and run classic, then that should suit your needs. Very few OS9 apps actually require booting into Mac OS 9. To make this work correctly however you would need to run Tiger Server, as Leopard breaks OS9 compatability; including the ability to control OS9 installations through the Workgroup Manager.

Also, if you want to claim that i am 4.5 years old as you said in your reply... it would carry more weight if you were to use correct grammar...

In the words of the immortal Red Foreman... DUMBASS!

I switched to Mac and my biggest problem has been it's too simple. Upgrading the OS ran $80 for 5 computers - 2 years ago and I'm not expecting another major upgrade anytime soon. Everything works. I don't need thousands of programs.

I'll give you a dollar!

No, what I said was Microsoft should release operating systems that work on hardware in the wild.

and where do you think the money comes from?

If you think Vista is "business ready" then im sure you also think Windows ME was the best O.S out there.

Maybe he bought a Vista machine for his home and notices how much it sucks.

A law that prohibits the state from buying Vista means that they'll have to pay for XP which in many case, as another commenter pointed out, costs money. And guess what doesn't come with free upgrade rights? Yep -- an XP license.

What happens when OEMs start offering only "Vista license, with XP installed"? This law will effectively prohibit purchasing new computers, that's what. Of course, if they have an Enterprise license agreement, they'll have to terminate it immediately -- it presently only covers Vista OSs. Which would leave all State computers unlicensed...

I'll leave the debate over Vista's use-worthiness to other commenters. The fact is, thanks to Microsoft's licensing structure, this is a terrible law that accomplishes nothing but making Texas State's IT employee's jobs much more difficult.

HP is really bad about requiring server software for some of their scan-to-X functionality and such. Ours is an Imagistics (Minolta based) and uses standard IP functions like smtp, ftp, etc.. Fortunately!

@Steve Rugg: The approved 'Army Gold Master' (AGM) are XP and Vista based images. They are based on the DISA Gold Standard.
[iase.disa.mil]

Last I heard they did not have an approved 'Gold Master' for the Mac yet (driver issues).

This is old, but just so you know I did not pull the term 'Army Gold Master' out of my butt:
[ascp.monmouth.army.mil]

Like most everyone else, the few Macs in the military are primarily used as graphics workstations.

@woot: He may not be a dick, he may just be an idiot.

@Trey Mahaffey: 4 year olds. You need to work on your ABC's fella, maybe learn about reading and comprehension.

@chrisjames: He sounds possibly dense to me. The government should manage the budget, not the IT department. Give the IT department its budget and let them figure out how best to spend it.

@Con Sumer Zealot: So basically, Con Sumer Zealot, what you're saying here is that the legislator is right, Vista sucks at reliability and they shouldn't use it in Texas and as a tech support person you should not be involved in the determination of how best to serve your users. That's the congress's job.

I think your missing the boat crabbing about Microsoft on this one. Your personal feelings about Microsoft aside, this is about a government legislating how to best take care of the users.

Here I have updated your statement:
"The classic and correct way to conduct things is have the legislators tell you that you cannot have a big select beta group, test it, knock the hell out of it, have the developers finalize it and then release to the world at large."

@I_am_Awesome: Thank you!

I had to read pretty far down to find somebody commenting on the article, and not on their personal love/hate of Windows/Apple/Linux/etc.

"They should have an IT department that sets the technology policies for all state government agencies"

My god, legislators can't do their own jobs worth a sh!t, they sure as h#** shouldn't be making THIS call.

Let the IT department spearhead and/or handle the research and planning. Let them do their jobs and make recommendations on how to best leverage the technologies available.

Once that is done, then the realities of the budget limitations can be duscussed, fought over, politicized, whatever.

A good IT staff knows its job is to use technology to improve productivity and balance the TCO.

@Trey Mahaffey: Your impatience and lack of understanding of the matter is understandable, as you appear to be only about 4 and 1/2 years of age.

I also assume you are to young to be on the senate banking committee.

You are, however, old enough to be a PC.

/sarcasm

This legislation is completely worthless, though, because more than likely the state of Texas, like many other Microsoft clients, is probably on an Enterprise Agreement with software assurance, because it is often more cost effective. That being the case, the state is already paying for Vista (and Windows 7).

I think Microsux needs to stop foisting experimental toy beta o/s's that don't get the job done on the world.

The classic and correct way to conduct things is have a big select beta group, not everyone, test it, knock the hell out of it, have the developers finalize it and then release to the world at large, instead of MS arrogantly making the world their beta tester because they have a monopoly.

MS just has no excuses any more. When Linux open source communities make safer, more reliable o/s's free of charge, and Presto Beta just made an o/s that boots in 15 seconds or less and you're on the web, it is becoming clearer and clearer MS just isn't smart enough or doesn't give a damn, and therefore, shouldn't run most of the worlds computers.

And yes, I'm in tech support and have been for 15 years, thanks.

2) "I don't know how many of my users call Office 2007 "Vista" and how long it took for me to clarify the difference to them." Yes, and I'm sure they loved every minute of it and walked away much richened by the experience.

@howie_in_az: You mean like this?

+ Watch video

@Trey Mahaffey: Sorry Trey, as others have stated, those were direct quotes that novice users said.
The point in my post was that a "typical" business user, especially in the public sector, believes that current technology is what exists on their 9 year old computer. Making a jump from a Win XP machine with all sorts of legacy software from Win 95 or Win 3.1.1 (that was installed to appease the novice users), to Windows Vista is enough to cause the "typical" business user a heart attack.

Trey, just so you don't feel any dumber after reading this post, what I am about to say is a joke. [Start Joke] As the very intelligent Senator Ted Stevens once said "The Internet is not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material" and for this reason, I think that all government should not use the internet, and should instead transport their data in large trucks that run across the country. This will ensure that data is delivered in a reliable fashion, and will help to spur the economy because of all the truck drivers that we will need. We can call this data delivery service the US Postal Service! (These are the types of people making LAWS to ban Vista)[End Joke]

Consumers shouldn't have to re-buy hardware every other year just because the Tech Industry wishes for it. It's a horrible little scam the OS & Hardware people got going. They each sell components that make you buy both. I don't feel like paying for your new Mercedes or Lil Bobby's braces. My old hardware is just fine.

linux is pretty easy to use & assuming that most users are going to have limited accessibility, adoption isn't too difficult. it's not as if they'll be playing in the shell or bashing script or decompiling repostiories. so, aside from the cost of getting necessary programs to work on the box, with each other & with needed hardware, lost productivity from people not knowing/forgetting how to do shit...yeah, i see no problem in deploying linux into your average workspace.

oh...except that tiny little thing. what was that? ... oh yeah, STABILITY (& that goes for vista as well). sure, both o/ses can be stable, but they can also be unstable...particularly when code has to be custom written in order for programs to work correctly.

Don't take the press releases too seriously. The upgrades - XP-to-Vista vs. XP-to-7 - will for the most part be identical.

Yes, upgrades do take time to complete. I've been involved in rollouts for twenty-something years, from small to the biggest (US anyway), and mostly, rollouts consume enormous amounts of people hours for the disruption and training that's better directed elsewhere. This is why, even were money plentiful, you wouldn't find many bites from business on the "Vista First" bait. MS has made it clear to us they understand and expect the real business transition to happen with Vista 2, er Windows 7. The rest are just "paying the electric bills."

There will be an XP-to-7 path, however, MS's quarterlies would prefer the masses didn't think so.

the company has a terminal version designed to work remotely as a thin-client, but that was rolled out after we made a significant investment in their non-terminal version. we may eventually make the switch, but in the meantime, there's really no point in making the upgrade.

anyway, i don't see how that's really relevant. you can run thin-client in xp as well - what's the point of using vista? just to say "yeah, we're cool." i mean, i've used vista before...it's alright. i don't have much issue with it. still, i don't see how it improves the work environment at all.

Maybe they should run stuff that doesn't insist they throw away what they use everytime their OS vendor comes out with a new release. I run the latest Linux on five year old hardware all the time.

If i had it my way I would go back to 98, the good old 98 or 2000........ Turbo button engaged!

Same thing that happens to me. I hate IE6 but I still have to design websites that work in IE6, IE7, IE8, FF, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome. If not then the client wouldn't pay me.

It's just ridiculous when I see people bashing software or browsers because their shit doesn't work with the current technology.

Learning Curve for users is a big one. While Linux is easy to use most people will be used to some form of Windows in some form or another. And this is another reason to stay away from Vista.

Learning curve for support staff. Setting up images, etc for ease of deployment of PCs.

One of the biggest, high level employees that have enough power and/or can make enough noise to be given an exception and allowed to keep their windows box. Now you have an environment that can be a support nightmare.

Going to Linux can be a cost saver, but it does take some $$ up front and the backing of the bosses to say do this or leave, which, in my experience is not the norm.

With all that said, passing a law to prevent the adoption of Vista is idiotic. From this quote, doesn't know what he is talking about We have a lot of problems with the Vista program
Vista can be a difficult OS to go to, but if you have a refresh policy, i.e. replace PC's every 3 or so years, than it is possible that many PC's will support installing Vista.

Apple only recently stopped supporting my 10 year old Powerbook that was clearly never intended to run OS X. The same is true for a crapload of other legacy models. What the fuck are you talking about? The only thing OS X really never supported were the 604es and older... not that you would know, since I can guess that you're blowing smoke out of your ass and didn't even have a Mac at that time.

@GuinevereRucker:
Probably because no major entity with self respect would put something as big as their computing abilities at the mercy of a company that conducts business in the way Apple conducts business. They remove and change features and support from products on a whim and are more focused on image than they are anything else.

Linux might make sense but then again you are saddled with a lot of things that are needlessly complex, not to mention the lack of familiarity the average user has with Linux.

Microsoft, for all it's flaws, offers a system that works well in the corporate enviroment and is familiar to most users. It isn't free(aib) but it is priced competitvely and can be bought in a wide array of configurations. For an entity that has such a wide array of needs, it only makes sense to go with the "middle of the road" choice. As far as Viruses go, the average Windows user is aware of these issues and take precautions (and any major corporate environment have these precautions integrated into their network)... the average Apple user however thinks they are invulnerable to attack and doesn't protect themselves at all. Then someone comes along with a safari exploit.....

Just use Linux? And who exactly are they going to call when something breaks or doesn't work? I dont think Linus has that kind of time to devote.

Linux is fine and all that, but it's not the magic bullet that a lot of people make it out to be. It's very complicated, cranky and NOT 100% compatible with hardware, and let's face it. When something breaks in Linux, it usually breaks in a big way.

Not to mention that now you have to train everyone on a completely alien operating system. Where's the C: drive? What's this /usr/local/bin/ thing?

@halcyondays: Property Taxes?

Cause it sure the hell ain't less spending.

However, I can assure you that I am competent in my position, and your personal attacks are unwarranted in either case. Supporting a network in any law firm can be a daunting task due to many attorneys' insistence upon using antiquated software or hardware, but that's no reason for you to make claims that I'm uneducated or incompetent. Your responses seem to indicate that you're the one trying to prove that you're better than everybody else somehow.

My firm has no justification for updating to Vista, so we won't.

(chuckles) Yep, this'll do time on quite a few cubicle walls.

But at least your company can benefit from the 'experience' of vista. Vista seems to be a little bit grown up since it released.

Presumably there will be some issues with Windows 7 releases. I know some people who will not buy a new OS until SP1 is released. Once they work out some of those bugs.

As a personal user, I don't have money riding on my computer systems. :-)

I can't speak for other state agencies, but ours has current hardware for every user (we replace them ever 3 years). All of them will support vista we just chose not to deal with the migration.

Now, you are correct about the serious lack of IT skill in government. When the City of Houston switched from Windows 95 to 2000, they lost about 2/5ths of their techs, because the schlubs were too scared to "learn" a "new" OS, so they quit.

Autocad does work on Vista, but we found that our guys working on it 50+ hours a week it tends to crash a lot more on Vista 64 than it does on XP 64. Cad on XP 64 can literally go weeks with no problems, but on Vista it seems that there need to be almost daily reboots.

Well the problem is, at some point they may decide they need software that isn't from 1991, and their xp machine may not run it. Also, Microsoft isn't going to support XP much longer.

ME also had a damned annoying name because people would say they had 2000 and get pissed off when the NT/2000 software they purchased would not work.

@Shaggy: no one with any IT expertise would refer to it as a program.

@Radi0logy: And very few people would depend on Linux for a server. Sure it's cheaper than Windows, but you get what you pay for.

The only thing I use Linux for is ESX3.5 to host my windows datacenter.

There is no reason to upgrade to Vista-- and the state should order computer with XP if they are new.

Most people I know loathe Vista and wish they had specified XP.

If Windows 7 doesn't rock this could be the end of MS as we know it.

@TechnoDestructo: Linux is even more impractical when your talking about hundreds of thousands of computers.

The problem with all of Microsoft operating systems until Vista was the hardware drivers. Most weren't certified and anytime the OS crashed it was the fault of shoddy drivers. Why would you keep the old ones?

There also is a place in time where it's no longer cost effective to keep 5 year old machines. Productivity goes down, helpdesk calls go up. As new machines roll out, you slowly put out vista. If you actually worked in a department like this you've done roll outs like this all the time.

You do realize for the price you paid for the 3-4 year old computer you can buy 3 computers that are exponentially more powerful?

All I'm saying is that for everyone who is saying hardware is expensive, there are other factors to take into effect when judging whether or not to upgrade. What are the costs of not upgrading?

Seriously, why would you use Windows for government anything? Enjoy your viruses, Texas.

@Tom_Servo: I think the biggest problem is that IT departments just don't feel like learning how new stuff works and getting recertified.

@mac-phisto: It's called a thin-client. Study up

@Ubik2501: I had to support a few law offices, they were the worst customers. Everyone of them made it a point to prove that they were better than me some how and yet couldn't figure out how to plug their computer in.

I guess some of it rubbed off on you. Do some research, use it at home. I've had no problems with vista and I've been using it since beta. Vista includes the ability to use a lot of great GPO updates that aren't native with XP, AND they fixed the Run As to actually work the way that it should.

That said, if you have no reason to upgrade, don't do it, especially with 7 on the horizon.

@MikeHerbst: The reality is that none of you have ever tried to deal with this on any scale let alone for a government agency.

Your post belies your ignorance and my fear is that it will be infectious.

95% of all printers, scanners, graphics tablets will work with Vista. Why you would separate network printers from normal printers is beyond me, but believe me, those work too.

I think your wife needs to upgrade their IT department because if they had Peripherals that were less than 2 years old that weren't supported in Vista and will never be supported in Vista, they bought from the wrong company. Further, if they have extremely specialized hardware (like a badge printer or receipt printer) there would probably be very few people using it and there are simple work arounds for it. So for your wife's story you are either not telling the full truth or their IT department must come from the local high school.

That said, there is no reason to upgrade to Vista especially with windows 7 on the horizon, which is really why a law like this would go into effect.

64 bit thingies... netscape navigator 4.0... and you dare call others novice?

I think its a fine OS for home use, but in a work environment, its deplorable. IT already has their hands full keeping up with the changes with each new server OS, technology and standards, etc. Desktop OSes with pretty graphics and completely different support requirements are not necessary or welcome.

Its like having a Windows environment for your network and then some new employee expects you to support his Apple laptop, and figure out why Entourage can't actually work with an Exchange server to allow delegates to be setup through it, or any number of other stupid problems which zap time and attention which is better spent elsewhere.

Also: No, we don't just let some user who wants to think different have their way with the condition that they are on their own; thats a disaster waiting to happen. We're here to get work done, and some things have to be standardized to make the process more efficient at a basic level. In Texas, it sounds like someone actually listened to their IT guy instead of just buying whatever shiny toy they decided they had to have because they've been subjected to so much marketing that they're brainwashed into a MUST HAVE frenzy.

I work in the industry and have to test these systems hard to verify that our software will work BEFORE we invest in purchases. I learned long ago that vendors lie and would say anything to move products. Vista is and has been very stable for a long time now not to mention hardware has been changing.

One thing people should really try and be aware of is VMware. With the i-7 core and a spiffy amount of ram you can run windows server, vista and XP all on the same system! We use VMware to test and image systems and its awesome.

Vista bashing became lame when Apple started making commercials. Its old and tired.

12 year old Dells with a Pentium 1 and 64mb of RAM are not ideal candidates to be upgraded to Windows Vista. Hells Bells, those computers aint suitable to upgraded to any modern OS.

This sounds like a lawmaker with a vendetta rather than a body of evidence. I'd imagine he bought a Vista PC and had problems with it and is now engaged in some sort of retarded jihad.

To the typical user, like this lawmaker, Vista is problematic. To the typical IT professional, who is actually running your network, not this politician, Vista is actually pretty damned good. This is among the stupidest things I've ever seen done in regards to politicians making decisions on technology; it's wholly unsurprising the news comes from Americas second stupidest state.

@InThrees: Oh yes! Great idea! Let's let all the goobermint agencies, who barely know how to use a PC beyond whatever single application they use every day, install Linux. I'm sure it'll be easy for their local tech guy to install Linux. Yup, Linux is so easy to install.... yup. And once they compile all of their drivers they can quickly get back to work. Or....or they can find the one guy in their city who uses Linux and he can install it for them.

And if they have problems, they can call..... the..... local.... linux..... support.... center...... yeah!

This idea is so perfect it's retarded!

Oh yeah, and not every manufacturer makes that available, so they'll lose out on competitive bids that could save taxpayers even more money.

Some business users have made good points in these comments about needing to retain support for other products on their networks, but I'm sure none of them would advocate such a stupid blanket policy that adds needless costs. Rather, they're more likely to assess the hardware they have, how it's going to work with Vista, and then come up with a solid, automated deployment plan. At this point, the upcoming availability of Windows 7 is a factor. That's sanity. This lawmaker is just being a dick.

[BTW: I'm no particular fan of Microsoft - we have Macs all over the place and love them, plus a whole slew of Windows Vista PCs. But there's a difference between having a preference for something and irresponsible ignorance, which is what this is].

The Legislator certainly sounds like a novice user and is being led to believe the misconception that Vista is inferior. Vista is simply the next itteration of the operating system, and it requires significantly more resources than XP, however, I would not recommend upgrading an XP machine to Vista, I would simply replace the hardware and purchase a system with Vista pre-installed. The larger problem is re-training of novice staff who would certainly be confused by the new user interface.

Vista does have its issues in certain circumstances. Specialized or customized software may not run properly, and there are the occasional "annoyances" with mainstream software. I found an incompatability between Vista and an Adobe product. It was well known, and neither company has issued an "official" fix for it, but the community found a workaround for it and it works fine.

On a similar note, at a recent staff meeting at my place of employment, it was announced that we would be replacing our 7 year old desktop machines with new laptops "Capable of using 64 bit thingies", while I was laughing on the inside about that statement, 6 people replied almost in unison "yeah, but they will probably only let us use 32 of them for the next couple years". As much as I like Vista, I hope that they don't implement it here because I don't want to listen to the complaints from people who are annoyed that they can't find the "Start" button, and lost their desktop shortcut to Netscape Navigator 4.0

Upgrade costs, including hardware, software, and training just are not justified by the few benefits.

Of all the upgrade justifications from MS, the one that carries weight is the ending of XP availability and support. That in itself is a tough sell to a rational business manager.

Wise customers are still ordering XP boxes through their business channels, prepping for Win7 (deployments starting maybe late '10), and encouraging their suppiers to be ready. Vista transitions now makes no sense at all.

Yes. By design. Unused memory is wasted if it could be used to cache something instead.

Unfortunately, you can't legislate the stupid out of government.

Don't these legislators have more important things to do, like censoring evolution school textbooks, finishing that border fence, and making sure 'the gays' don't destroy my marriage?

Actually, I'm positive that it is a bad idea for them to use Vista on state computers since it looks terrible on a green screen and has few drivers compatible with 1980s era dot matrix printers.

The clients at the company I work for are banks. Even our smaller customers have tens of thousands of receipt printers and check scanners. If you honestly think the banks are going to shell out millions to replace them because Microsoft says they need to upgrade to Vista, well, don't come work for us; you'd get us laughed out of the meetings.

"Life-cycle management" does not mean throwing out perfectly functional hardware because a software issue with one OS prevents its normal use.

sadly, i know the texas state government is going to run into problems when they lose computers due to age attrition and have to replace them with something - and no one will want to pay extra for a non vista machine.

@DustoMan: Thanks, but I would rather pay LESS taxes rather than more. 'ppreciate it...

@HFC: And something you need to realize is that some business, such as the one I work for, do not want to go to Vista because in a business environment it is a raging piece of crap. I'm all for Vista on a machine at home that you are only gaming on, but for business I need a STABLE machine. That means XP. With around 250,000+ users in the company I work for, I would say that is a REALLY big advertisement for XP.

@Thassodar: My work computer is less than a year old, it uses XP Pro. It's just better for business.

When you're talking about hundreds or thousands of government or business computers, you're talking about tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace them.

So we can upgrade to Vista, but someone's gonna have to be fired.

Either that or every computer that used to be just fine is suddenly going to be super-slow.

Software companies have to learn to deal with the realities of the hardware situation. If Microsoft wants Vista or its successor (which hopefully draws lessons from Vista...ones that should have been obvious DECADES ago) to be accepted without complaint, they should offer a stripped-down low-resource version, and support for all (ALL) XP drivers.

Linux distros have been doing the former since the 90s, and they've been making a pretty good stab at the latter, without the tremendous resources of Microsoft.

I can't even imagine the nightmare I'd have transitioning Concordance and Summation setups over to a Vista network.

Here's an idea... maybe it's time to upgrade your receipt printers and barcode scanners if the manufacturer stopped writing drivers for Vista. It's called "life-cycle management". Progressively phase out old-out dated hardware as you purchase new ones.

To go as far as to write a rider into a bill banning Vista, it just a tad bit extremist.

For the most part, businesses are going to have no problem using Vista. For every specialized business that has a problem with Vista, there are several business success stories using Vista.

Vista is basically NT ME. 10 years from now Microsoft is going to be trying to pretend it never happened.

Microsoft is saying people who upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 will have the least amount of problems.

Whereas, people upgrading from XP to Windows 7 will as many problems, or more, as people upgrading from XP to Vista. Mainly because Windows 7 is Windows Vista redesigned. So if your computer never went through the growing pains of Vista... 7 might hurt.

I use Vista on my home PC, and I like it. I refuse to put my office on to Vista because it would require unnecessary hardware purchases to run and would bring a hell storm of confused users on my desk. XP runs fast and stable enough as it is, and everyone knows how to use it on a daily basis. Microsoft needs to realize there are two different markets for their products, and forcing the design changes they make in their home OS to be repeated in their business OS doesn't work. My user's don't need transparency, window effects, and big pretty icons. They need functionality, speed, and stability. Perhaps, instead of applying different names to their same software with slightly different features, they should split the two to support the two channels of their customers.

Imagine trying to surf the internet and write a paper on a computer running Windows 3.1 using word perfect. Sure it may 'work' and allow you to do your internet research and write the paper.... but there may be a lot of frustration and and endless waste of time waiting for the system to 'catch up' as it 'stalls' every few minutes because it's an old POS.

@Dustin A Coates: Yeah, I see that now.

I agree. Generally academics, especially those at public universities, tend to hold onto equipment longer than is practical, especially if its paid for, and especially if they can get someone else to keep it running. I'm all for upgrading outdated stuff.

I'm very against having to shelve an 18-month old enterprise network printer because the ladies in the academic advising office (i.e. student councilors) just upgraded their email machines.

@Tom_Servo: Hmm, you know, I have Vista on my laptop at home and was able to get AutoCad to work just fine on it. I've not had any issues with programs, some just take a little bit more work to have them function.

My original job title was "legacy support." Which is basically what I still do just with systems administrator and network support added to the mix now.

@Saboth: But what if those computers work just fine for what they need it for? Most state agencies don't need a fancy machine.

@Thassodar: What if that computer works just fine for what they need it for? Yay for spending money they don't need to be spending!

You upgrade the PC, which comes with Vista (because you can't specify XP on the order-line anymore), and now your printer, scanner, graphics tablet, and network printer cease to work. No Vista support available, none ever planned.

My wife recently went through this at the University and her office was forced to toss out a pile of peripherals (most less than 24 months old) since they could not be supported in Vista.

I can't even imagine running a small business where this happened, since you'd be forced to replace equipment you weren't even done depreciating yet.

That's a great idea.

While we're giving out great ideas, maybe Microsoft could release software that supports existing popular hardware. Most of the free linux distros do it, and as I said, they are FREE. It can't be that expensive.

Personally I would buy Vista, but for business purposes it makes no sense, AutoCad 2008/2009 is only thing that we use that will actually work with Vista, and they don't work well on it, let me tell you.

I'm not saying that is Microsoft's fault, I'm just saying it makes Vista a product which we cannot use.

Last time I went to pay my water bill (in TX, mind you) I was surprised to see that they had a touch screen CRT monitor. Blew my mind.

Or they could just use Linux.