| Canadians speak out: Why we want to save XP
By:
Rafael Ruffolo
- ComputerWorld Canada
(14 Mar 2008)
Three Canadian IT managers give their reasons for signing ComputerWorld Canada’s petition to Save XP. Why IMP Group cannot use Vista for its ERP system. IT managers have spoken and their cry is loud and clear: Windows XP is still mission-critical. Like previous software upgrades, Microsoft Corp.’s plan to stop selling retail versions of XP this June will leave many IT folks scrambling to catch-up. Sign the petition To try and stave off the operating system’s impending demise, IT managers from across the country are signing ComputerWorld Canada’s SaveXP online petition. The recently launched initiative allows readers to protest the mandatory Vista upgrade as well as keep up-to-date with the latest on XP support, tips, tricks and industry commentary in the SaveXP blog. For Wayne Bonaguro, IT manager at Carpenter Canada, Microsoft’s move away from XP is coming just too soon for his Calgary-based foam manufacturing company. “All our machines run by programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and some of the PLCs we have in existence cannot even handle XP yet,” Bonaguro said. “In fact, the companies that develop these devices, like Siemens and Allen-Bradley, haven’t even begun working on Vista compatibility. We’ve just recently gotten most of our systems running nicely under XP, so to get that yanked out from underneath us is going to be an issue.” And many of the same sentiments were shared by Alan Pollard, IT director at the Winnipeg-based Law Society of Manitoba, who said that in-house legacy applications have given him fits during his preliminary testing with Vista. A potential upgrade, he said, would cost too many headaches and “a whole bunch of costs.” “We’ve got a legacy database written back in the olden days that just doesn’t run, so really that’s the end of the discussion,” Pollard said. “That’s why we’re trying to buy a little bit more time before an upgrade. Oddly enough though, the database runs fine in Linux using Wine, so we may actually have to commute in that direction.” Pollard said that over the next several years, his firm will be looking at thin client solutions for a potential upgrade – an area in which Microsoft currently falls short. “When you take a look at all the portable devices around, with the iPhone and so on, people are going to want to be able to access their corporate legacy database off their portable devices,” Pollard said. “That’s not going to happen in the infrastructure we’ve got now. And that’s not going to happen with Vista either.” 
 
Bookmark this article on:
Have something to say about this article? 
If you find a comment inappropriate, You can notify the moderator by clicking the  icon.
| |  | A lot of what I read in this article and a few others has to do with issues with legacy applications.
“All our machines run by programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and some of the PLCs we have in existence cannot even handle XP yet,”
“We’ve got a legacy database written back in the olden days that just doesn’t run, so really that’s the end of the discussion,”
"Vista is still incompatible with Oracle Corp.’s JD Edwards enterprise ERP software – an important application to the company’s operations"
Is it Vista that is incompatible? I understand there were a lot of changes in Vista that caused some application compatability but it has been out for over a year now. Shouldn't those software vendors have fixed their applications by now?
Should Microsoft be faulted because IT departments haven't kept the rest of their systems up to date and have fallen behind?
Should they be faulted for following their published product lifecycles that have been followed for years?
I don't think so. While there were issues with the RTM of Vista, SP1 has taken care of the majority of those. It is time for the hardware and software vendors to get their acts together and start fixing their applications and drivers. It is time for IT departments to stop taking the "don't fix it if it ain't broken" approach and start investing in technology and leveraging it to drive their business forward and not just maintain the status quo.
You can't blame any product for these types of issues.
| |
Written by: Rob D., from Toronto | |
| | | Come on Rob D. No-one minds investing in new technology when it offers some payback. unfortunately there's no payback in switching to Vista, only costs ! | |
Written by: garyM, from Calgary | |
| | | I don't know why the high tech and IT industries thinks they have some type of special economic and righteous privilege which is not afforded any other consumer industry. There is a natural progression which occurs with most consumer products that allows for a natural evolution to occur for slow and steady updating as the end consumer finds the need or desire to make the move.
Forced evolution is always met with resistance, and so it should be, because rather than being fostered from the natural evolution of attraction to the advantages, it is driven artificially, and often against our will.
Even in areas where forced evolution might actually make some sense for our own survival, like banning the sale of oil based fuels over the next 5 years, as an example, it would never happen because the backlash would be extreme.
Yet in high tech, somehow the industry seems to think it has the right to make obsolescent goods that still work and fulfill the needs of their owners.
They've forced us to go from videotape to DVD, records and tapes to CDs, by no longer allowing the soft goods to be produced in those media. They have yet to offer a reasonable disposal solution for all that old media and the machines required for it. Regular TV service is going to have to go digital or HD in a year or so, and we are all supposed to just smile and accept it. Most are not arguing the advantages of the newer technologies, but it is still resented because of monetary loss and the need to relearn the technology, and most of this doesn’t involve nearly as much an investment of time as integrating a new OS on a computer system.
Touchtone telephone service was adopted over numerous years, and basically the same phone equipment I purchased 15 to 25 years ago still works with today’s phone system.
The three pronged grounded electrical socket was phased in over many years, and many appliances still use the original 2 prong plug. Lead substitutes were added to gasoline or made | |
Written by: Neil E, from Victoria | |
| | | My comments were cut off, so here's the rest...
Lead substitutes were added to gasoline or made available to maintain the small percentage of cars which still required it.
Upgrading your car with a new sound system doesn't require you to have to learn how to drive again. And basically with use of small incremental changes, cars today run on the same fuel they did one hundred years ago. Although what's going on under the hood has changed considerably, for the average user, it makes no difference. Changes in infrastructure should mainly occur behind the scenes without causing major relearning or having to hire professionals to make things work. They should not be so disruptive as to put factories and businesses out of commission for days or weeks, or more, nor should they cost massive amounts in equipment upgrades and training. It should not be up to the IT companies to decide when they want us to change our OS, it should be up to us to decide when WE need the change and can justify it.
In the case of Vista, in particular, there have been enough cases of difficulties in integrating it with older equipment to make many larger corporations to be very shy about switching. It isn't Microsoft that will pay the consequences of a bad "upgrade" when things go horribly wrong.
To the many IT pros here who are "whining" that people should just switch because they are holding back progress, besides your personal self interest in the income from installing these new systems and bug fixing them, it just isn't up to you to decide when a business determines it needs a new IT. Most probably have no clue what the external costs are in facilitating an OS upgrade.
And lastly, as to Microsoft themselves... There is no reason why new OSs can't have transition functions built into them to allow for a much smoother upgrade path, which allows for older equipment and peripherals to work, even if at less efficiency, or for "translators" to work behind the "screen" to allow p | |
Written by: Neil E, from Victoria | |
| | | Final part:
And lastly, as to Microsoft themselves... There is no reason why new OSs can't have transition functions built into them to allow for a much smoother upgrade path, which allows for older equipment and peripherals to work, even if at less efficiency, or for "translators" to work behind the "screen" to allow people to slowly move through an OS upgrade as they become familiar with the new features. Don't put a jet dashboard in front of me when I'm still driving a car.
It is horribly wasteful of human resources and physical assets when an abrupt OS change is made and half the support machines and equipment no longer work at all or as they did previously. The reason people state "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is because often in "fixing it anyway" it GETS BROKE. When IT professionals, and Microsoft can promise an absolutely seamless transition to something BETTER, for a justifiable cost, then they have the right to attempt to pressure people and businesses to move "forward". Until that time, they should be required to supply continued support of current systems, even if a reasonable fee is required to do so. People/businesses/corporations should be able to purchase extended support licenses/warranties for older OSs.
Businesses and individuals have, up until now, been relatively forgiving of the overly controlling business models being used by high tech and IT, but patience is running out, and the response to Vista is an example of the backlash which is developing. The cost of the Y2K mess is still not forgotten.
Humans have a limited capacity to adapt to changes in their environment. They have the authority to control which changes they wish to adopt, and do so when and if they becomes useful and convenient for them. | |
Written by: Neil E, from Victoria | |
| | | Vista is a dead OS. I dont know anyone who in IT roles who actually prefer Vista over XP. I know about 50 IT people throughout the company working from mid sized companies to extremely large companies (20,000 plus users). None of them have any interest in rolling out Vista and none run it on their home computers.
Vista is dead. Might as well right applications to work on Windows ME. MS knew enough to put a fork in Windows ME within about 6 months of release. How is it that Ballmer doesn't get the message about Vista. Other than MS fanboys who think MS can do know wrong, I don't know anyone who thinks Vista is a good thing.
I'm not anti MS - I run XP on my home machines and laptop as well as about 95% of the PCs I support including a major university. I'm hoping MS learns from the fiasco that is Vista but since Ballmer refuses to actually every seriously discuss Vista other than saying he sold a lot of copies (numbers inflated by forced deals with vendors for Vista only machines and doesn't include numbers of PCs that were upgraded to XP when MS caved when so many people shouted Vista sucks).
I really really hope Windows 7 performs significantly better than Vista - I would hope it runs faster on new hardware than XP can. I hear fanboys say things like XP wasn't that great when it came out - actually it was. No OS is perfect but XP ran pretty darn well when it came out I didn't need to wait for SP1 to roll it out. Even with SP1 Vista is a slug. | |
Written by: boe, from | |
| | | Vista is a dead OS. I dont know anyone who in IT roles who actually prefer Vista over XP. I know about 50 IT people throughout the company working from mid sized companies to extremely large companies (20,000 plus users). None of them have any interest in rolling out Vista and none run it on their home computers.
Vista is dead. Might as well right applications to work on Windows ME. MS knew enough to put a fork in Windows ME within about 6 months of release. How is it that Ballmer doesn't get the message about Vista. Other than MS fanboys who think MS can do know wrong, I don't know anyone who thinks Vista is a good thing.
I'm not anti MS - I run XP on my home machines and laptop as well as about 95% of the PCs I support including a major university. I'm hoping MS learns from the fiasco that is Vista but since Ballmer refuses to actually every seriously discuss Vista other than saying he sold a lot of copies (numbers inflated by forced deals with vendors for Vista only machines and doesn't include numbers of PCs that were upgraded to XP when MS caved when so many people shouted Vista sucks).
I really really hope Windows 7 performs significantly better than Vista - I would hope it runs faster on new hardware than XP can. I hear fanboys say things like XP wasn't that great when it came out - actually it was. No OS is perfect but XP ran pretty darn well when it came out I didn't need to wait for SP1 to roll it out. Even with SP1 Vista is a slug. | |
Written by: boe, from | |
| | | Vista is a dead OS. I dont know anyone who in IT roles who actually prefer Vista over XP. I know about 50 IT people throughout the company working from mid sized companies to extremely large companies (20,000 plus users). None of them have any interest in rolling out Vista and none run it on their home computers.
Vista is dead. Might as well right applications to work on Windows ME. MS knew enough to put a fork in Windows ME within about 6 months of release. How is it that Ballmer doesn't get the message about Vista. Other than MS fanboys who think MS can do know wrong, I don't know anyone who thinks Vista is a good thing.
I'm not anti MS - I run XP on my home machines and laptop as well as about 95% of the PCs I support including a major university. I'm hoping MS learns from the fiasco that is Vista but since Ballmer refuses to actually every seriously discuss Vista other than saying he sold a lot of copies (numbers inflated by forced deals with vendors for Vista only machines and doesn't include numbers of PCs that were upgraded to XP when MS caved when so many people shouted Vista sucks).
I really really hope Windows 7 performs significantly better than Vista - I would hope it runs faster on new hardware than XP can. I hear fanboys say things like XP wasn't that great when it came out - actually it was. No OS is perfect but XP ran pretty darn well when it came out I didn't need to wait for SP1 to roll it out. Even with SP1 Vista is a slug. | |
Written by: boe, from | |
| | | This is a perfect argument for open source solutions. The companies mentioned in the article wouldn't be having the problems they do if their systems were based on open source platforms and solutions. Why use MS Office and its proprietary document formats, only to have them become out-moded and unsupported? Why use Windows XP when the company who sold it to you is going to stop supporting it, without releasing any technical materials, let alone the source code, that would allow another party to maintain it?
Unfortunately, most users will have tantrums if they are asked to change their habits in any way, such as using OpenOffice instead of MS Office (one of my users requested the company buy MS Office Enterprise because OpenOffice Writer's thesaurus wasn't as big as he was used to in MS Word), and management is ever wary of changing to a new operating system.
In any case, XP is an 'old' operating system, but it's capable of any task users want to perform, it's ubiquitous, and Microsoft is foolish to stop supporting and selling it. | |
Written by: Jamie, from Vancouver | |
| | | I would like to see XP put to bed. It's 7 years old where as Apple comes out with a new OS very 2 years just about. Look at it form Mircosoft point of view. They are making the OS, it not up to them if your software doesn't work with there OS. Look at your options, Switch to Apple all the software will have to be rewriten, same with linux, same with vista. Mircosoft has the correct idea, they are changing things and if your company can't change with the times it's going fall behind. As far cost goes yes there is big money in switching software training. But there are things in vista that making for less downtime. Compainies that have software that that works on dos, 3.1, 95 anything that doesn't work on vista it's time to take a look. | |
Written by: Clayton Brauner, from | |
| | | hi listen people, yes XP was probably one of the best work from MS, but listen as a sotware programmer (Windows API) vista is so much more than what you can see. They added 7000 more api for us developers. Also i do agree with Rob. D from toronto i'm tired of people crying because they're too greedy for investing in a proactive solution. And that's why no the industry of software development is so crapy because people do things to fast and there's no quality. I mean vista was available to vendors about a year before it came out to the public so everybody get's ready with their drivers and hardware upgrades so i'm sorry if you don't follow the fast paste of today's technology world. Well set yourself aside and let the big boys set the standards of quality. | |
Written by: Etienne Gauthier, from Montreal | |
| | | Those saying "companies should spend the money and upgrade" don't obviously work in the real world, or at least for one of the 80% of the companies that have tight IT budgets that don't allow for wholesale OS upgrading! Heck we just got rid of some W98 machineslast year. Wonder if any of the writers touting upgrade expenditures will be canned because the company had to spend money instead on upgrading to Vista?? | |
Written by: W. Post, from Windsor | |
| | | In industries such as healthcare, there are going to be many who see no imminent reason to switch to Vista. Budgets are tight, IT staffing is low, and the application software is specialized. For us, software stability and longevity is key. For most users, the Windows OS is just a way to get to their shortcuts. That's where all the work happens. There is no business case for moving to Vista that is going to persuade senior management to that is more important than purchasing incubators or clinical monitors. It's not a matter of greed or not being able to keep up. It's a matter of doing the most you can with the little you're given and for it to be stable in a 7/24 environment. I plan to implement VDI this year. With XP, I can run 7-8 virtual XP machines per core on an ESX server, but with Vista, I can only run 4-5 per core. That means almost double the servers. For me, that's a deal breaker for VDI. And since our main clinical application doesn't run on Vista, I guess XP the obvious choice for the next few years. | |
Written by: Rick, from | |
| | | Hey guys, let us be realistic. Technology is changing very fast and the only way to remain competitive in the world is to adapt very fast. Security issues abound and definitely must be curtailed from time to time with improved technology. That is why Companies pay CISSP's large to advice them on the trends outside. IT managers do have equipments renewed from leases almost every 2 to 3 years, so why buy " A new car and put in an old engine".
Most companies are nearing thier end of lease so they should consider training their staff to move on the band wagon if we want to remain competitive.
XP is Good but Vista is Better. It works for me. What about you?
Sam | |
Written by: Sam, from Brampton | |
| | | Putting Vista in a new PC is like putting 48 octane in your new CAR. But a better description would be that it is like buying a new car that drags an open parachute behind it or buying a speed boat and throwing the anchor overboard and dragging it along. You can put XP on a new machine and you experience some significant performance gains. There is no denying it - just google XP vista and benchmarks.
Vista is the worst OS MS has ever released. | |
Written by: boe, from | |
| | | PLC's and other production equipment often have a completely different replacement cycle than computer equipment. There is a trend to use wintel based systems (Shelf live <3 years) on equipment that may have a twenty year productive lifespan. This is a big concern for us and I don't see much discussion of how to deal with it in the news... IT suffers from a bad rep in the manufacturing world because they don't really know the problems faced or suggest unrealistic solutions. | |
Written by: John, from Toronto | |
| | | Given the state of open software, and the ability for VM to run quite adequately XP, I suggest that if legacy PLC's or other apps require XP, then EMULATE it on upgraded hardware, but make the switch sooner rather than later to open operating systems. I'd suggest that a number of Linux distro's are adequate to the desktop, and given VMware or Xen, or even QEMU's ability to run Windows legacy versions, there is no reason to make the switch to Vista.
While still some buy into the Microsoft monopoly, there are more efficient and less expensive alternatives which are already more than suited to the task. | |
Written by: Rob S., from Oshawa | |
| | | Those who propose downgrading from XP to Vista above must have money trees growing inside their departments. Revenue Canada should audit their organizations' finance and accounting. | |
Written by: Oscar, from GVA | |
| | | I also want to put my name behind XP for the simple reason that it works and works well...I am now having to advise potential customers whom have purchased a new PC with Vista on it that there is a likelyhood that there will be additional charges when setting up their PC with the newly installed satellite broadband system that I sell and install. The worst ones are the ones that are still in the box when I arrive. That usually adds 1-2 hours of "hurry up and wait" that I can no longer afford to absorb. Whether MS continues with Vista or some other version of their OS, they need to really address the overall dis-satisfaction of Vista by users world wide. | |
Written by: Terry Paton, from Vanderhoof, BC | |
| | | I had to make my test automation software work on Vista since my company's products will be released on Vista. No big deal. The real problem is the learning curve for our IT guys. Why MS had to hide all the important setup functionality (like network setup, environment variables, etc.) behind a "cutsey", dumbed-down user interface that is, by design, DIFFERENT from XP I'll never know. XP didn't necessarily have a great UI, but millions of people know how to use it. Now ALL those people will have to be re-trained if they upgrade to Vista. There's your real upgrade costs! For my home PCs, and my development laptop at work, I won't be upgrading to Vista and, if XP really becomes obsolete, then I'll consider other alternatives (like Linux) if I have to re-train anyway. | |
Written by: Martin, from Dallas | |
| | | Ok, I see everyone's point here, and yes i read them all, but I disagree saying Vista is crap, I've been running it at home for over a year now and I have a couple friends doing the same, they have had no issues and same with me. I am actually not threatening to reimage my drive which is a first since XP came out. My friends us it for DB work on their personal SQL servers. I use mine for gaming and there are no issues.
I do agree that they should extend the XP demise for the fact that yes there are so many companies out there that just cannot afford to move up. Last year my company finally got rid of the last of theirs as well, and we run well over 2000 computers, I am sure more. Just can't understand why so much negative treatment on an OS when any software comes to market, there's always a bug in the system waiting to be found. | |
Written by: Chris, from BC | |
| | | I'm sick and tired of the winning that comes from IT Managers all over Canada. Our American customers are very proactive in adopting new technology on a regular basis. Canada is so crippled in IT it really is almost 3rd world conditions. I say let the axe fall and let the heads roll. Ignorance is no case for laziness. I've been using Vista since it was launched and love it. It's easier to use than XP, case in check with my mother getting a new HP with Vista. She finds it must easier and doesn't bug me nearly as much as when she had XP. If it passes the mom test, you don't have a leg to stand on to save XP regarding UI. XP is swiss cheese with a billion band-aids. Stop using shortcuts in your organization and lay down some decent money for the proper solution that scales. | |
Written by: Brad, from Winnipeg | |
| | | Increased hardware costs, increased licencing, compatibility issues, malware etc. etc. - in a case like this, it is time to take a serious look at triage: determine just exactly which users can 'get by' without Vista and which users MUST have Vista's features. Lastly, which users can be switched to Linux/OpenOffice and get rid of the Microsoft tax once and for all. That's where we're headed here at our shop (1,200 users). | |
Written by: Jim S., from Toronto | |
| | | I run the IT functions for a small software company. I also do some IT consulting to small business. I personally have two computers running Vista -- one HP notebook and one desktop -- both used by my kids. I also have Vista on a separate HD for my Dell notebook for testing. Vista is a dog. The kids hate it. They are constantly complaining how slow everything is and how annoying the Vista User Account Control is. Many devices are not supported. I had to 'trick' Vista into installing the XP drivers for my LaserWriter 16/600 PS printer because it suddenly decided that the drivers were not compatible (after a security update). Ditto Adobe Acrobat 7 (suddenly would not run, yet was preinstalled by HP when the system was delivered. The only useful fix in Vista (over XP) is the installation escalation feature, which actually allows you to escalate an install with Admin privileges and install it in the current user's profile (XP installs to the Admin profile if you do this -- stupid). We have become very creative in obtaining XP licenses. We now buy second-hand IBM PCs that come with XP Pro COA on them, for about $175 per. So far, we have bought 7 in the past year. So Vista is also costing the hardware manufactures sales. Small businesses don't have the time or money to trouble-shoot all the upgrade issues, replace the software (if you can!) and peripherals that don't have Vista drivers, etc. etc. Maybe SP2 will be better... ? | |
Written by: Glen T, from Vancouver, BC | |
| | | I haven't noticed any comments from women, as my wife has pointed out: note these issues with PC OS generally do not exist with Mainframe of course this is like comparing apples and oranges. However as my wife puts it see the following - she worked on the PC side dating back to the good old days of Win 3.0 16B:
As someone who is a ‘has been’ in this business since 1990 as a tech support on Compuserve for Delrina Technologies ( remember the old days when the latest fab technology was the ability to fax from Windows), it never ceases to amaze me how MS manages to pull another OS that is unstable.
One component is consistent since the 90’s: Power and ownership of the OEM market leads to monopoly of the PC OS (Operating System) no matter how flagrantly unstable the OS is. I look back remembering my days in ’supporting’ Win 3.0 and just begin to wonder that nothing has changed.
I refuse to upgrade to Vista for obvious reasons - the lack of stability (see the PcWorld stress testing), the lack of ownership/commitment of the vendor product & release (i.e MSDN membership with no access to SP.1) and the blatant attitude that all can afford to upgrade to the next generation of software: MS SQL Server 2008, .NET 200x etc.
I’m not rolling in cash to support a blatant attempt by MS to upgrade: as I stated before since my tech support 90’s days at Delrina - nothing has changed.
| |
Written by: Brian Sudds, from Toronto | |
| | | Well I read all the different points and yes people should not be forced to switch in till they are ready.
I have been running Vista for about a year now on my PC and the only annoying thing I found so far is that some of my programs don't run right and that you need to confirm everything a crap load of times. | |
Written by: Jacques Larabie, from Rockland | |
| | | For all of those complaining that companies should spend money and upgrade: not all companies can afford to do this. I work for a nonprofit company and thus do not have unlimited resources to deal with this type of upgrade.
Others mentioned that you should just "obtain an upgrade" for PLC software. My brother works in a heavy industry that uses specialized PLCs. For the most part these things are abandonware. If the company still is around, they have zero interest in upgrading their software.
Thirdly, someone mentioned scalability: I'm sorry, but with closed-source software that you can't maintain scalability is damn near impossible.
I myself am not looking forward to getting Vista shoved down our throats. We have staff here that barely understand the computer as it is, and they just got used to XP. To have them switch to a completely different UI is a training nightmare, which again costs money that we don't have.
Way to go, Microsoft. | |
Written by: Dan Frey, from Abbotford, BC | |
| | | This move by Microsoft could well turn out to be the best thing to happen to the computer industry in years. If companies are going to be forced to "upgrade" to Vista it will mean they will have to spend lots of money to rewrite their applications. If the money has to be spent anyway, then why not invest it in something useful instead, say, moving to a real OS, like Linux or Mac OSX? Truly, there has never been a better time to ditch Microsoft, and by touting Vista, Microsoft are making it easy for companies to decide to do just that. Thanks Steve!!
| |
Written by: Peter Hugosson-Miller, from Stockholm | |
| | | Hmmm, I do see the argument but though I’m not a Vista fan at this point, I really think it’s pretty much required as more and more media becomes available. I really don’t buy the "we can’t afford a new system, we have to train people and that costs money, and we shouldn’t be forced to adopt new technology if we don’t want to" argument. The reality is that companies don’t want to spend money upgrading. They simply want to make profits, not investments in the company infrastructures.
I know for a fact that Canadian Tire is still using a legacy system based on COBOL, massive computers that are decades old and spending a lot of money trying to make old legacy systems compatible to use new technology.
And don’t tell me that "if it aunt broke" theory holds. It doesn't. Buggy whips still work just fine. But they don't do much for today's cars. Convections ovens work fine. But microwave ovens are fast, and are useful, save energy, don’t take up much room and are really really convenient.
I didn’t love DOS (though I remember it fondly), I did really like Windows 3.1 and I kicked and screamed about switching to Windows 98, and I really thought the ME version was a disaster. I came over to XP when tricked into it by a fellow geeky programmer. Each time I was unhappy for a few days or weeks until I realized the new capabilities and was able to play with the new interface to my satisfaction.
Yes, I remember the problems with the switchover to 2000 and the four digit problem. Again, the same situation with people being unwilling to upgrade, change what they’re familiar with or to consider that things do change over time.
I have started using Vista just recently. I had an 8 year old Athlon, using first Win 98 and then XP. It chugged along and though there were things that were fast becoming useless on it, I saw no reason to ‘fix something that wasn’t broke”. At Christmas we got a few new toys. A digital camera. An MP3 player with video. A cell phone that was n | |
Written by: Tanya E Fuller, from London Ontario Canada | |
| |
|
IT Manager/Developer
RE: IT Manager/Developer