How to avoid Windows Vista in business.

[reddragdiva]

I'm a Unix sysadmin. I got a new work laptop today, still on XP. I asked the IT guys if we were in any danger of Vista. They said "Nope, XP is supported for years yet!" And we all exhaled.

We have worked out that if we are ever threatened with Vista, we promptly (a) pump up the Gutmann (b) write a whole pile of in-house apps for ourselves that only work on XP. The latter already worked wonderfully for us in making an instant business case for staying on Firefox — make sure your in-house web apps are written for Firefox and SeaMonkey, and specifically break in IE. (This is easy: just write to standards. We have one vital app for twenty people that was broken for six months in IE with no-one realising ...)

So: to stay off Vista, stock up on in-house apps that don't work on it. Then you have the business case you need.

Comments

[mangosteen]

Pump Up The Gutmann
Pump Up The Gutmann
Pump Up The Gutmann
Dance
Dance

[reddragdiva]

I'm imagining that in a thick Noo Zullun' accent, with samples of "Stick all the bits of brain in a plastic bag, Barry, we'll need them for analysis" over the top.

[lastaii.livejournal.com]

There's an even greater business case if you're unfortunate enough to be running racks of winders blades as a front end, see how many citrix sessions you can run on the same hardware when you upgrade to vista :o)

[poggs.livejournal.com]

Why not upgrade to Linux instead?>

[reddragdiva]

We're talking about work laptops here. That said, there's a big empty D: drive that runs Ubuntu just fine.

[poggs.livejournal.com]

Work laptops can be circumvented by the judicious application of a disk imaging program.

Or, as I did, saying "Look, don't bother spending two hours putting a managed XP build on it, I'll just wipe it and put Debian on it".

A former boss said "You guys aren't getting your Windows machines locked down, because you'll only f-ing well hack around it and install Linux"

[reddragdiva]

Trust me when I say that your personal work situation is far from universal and such option far from universally tenable.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Hoo boy yes. Glad I'm getting out now.

[stevenothing.livejournal.com]

In my place I'd get in trouble if I didn't remove Windows and install Linux from any work laptop.

[poggs.livejournal.com]

I think I want to work there :-)

[illuin.livejournal.com]

MS supports XP until June '09 I think

If you get Vista Business on equipment, then you get down-rev rights to XP-professional without having to consume an extra XP license.
I buy vista laptops for work and reinstall XP on them, because the non-stock XP machines are about $200 more than the same stock machine with Vista on it; we can blow away a vista installation in a matter of minutes using Ghost.

[seahorsemystic.livejournal.com]

My husband is going through those same issues in his company. He is a senior systems engineer, and he HATES Vista. He encourages XP, if you have to use Windows. I wish I knew more of the language, but I can summarize what he tells me. :)

[reddragdiva]

Pass this onto him!

[xandraius.livejournal.com]

Unofficially from the inside of the PC industry I say unto thee:

the biggest threat to Vista is XP. Outsells it like mad. No one fucking wants Vista. No worries David. You can't GIVE that fucker away.

[reddragdiva]

THERE'S NO REASON NOT TO BE SURE.

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

The Cisco VPN is a good piece of software that just won't work on Vista properly, as is Citrix.

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

I don't know what universe you're from, but there's no way the Cisco VPN malware can be regarded as "good". Except, perhaps, in a "doesn't run on Vista" way.

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

It's good as in "It's the only thing that will let me connect to our second-biggest customers and have a look at their systems and databases".

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

Just don't change physical network cards in the machine while you have that malware installed. Recipe for bluescreens during boot.

(We use SSH. Much easier, rather more cross-platform, far less hassle to maintain too.)

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

Let's see... Cisco VPN, Microsoft VPN (or whatever it's called), Aventail VPN, NetScreen Remote, Remote Desktop, DameWare, VNC Viewer, RAdmin, Citrix, ssh, LogMeIn, PC Anywhere or whatever else the customer has decided to use and what operating system their servers run on.

There's not a single PC in this office that can connect to all customers.

[ajohnymous.livejournal.com]

Just have your Vista app randomly and frequently write some data to a system directory, the system will keep popping up those "Are you sure?" messages.

(Although to be fair, the same bad programming practice would screw up Linux or OSX, it's just that Windows users aren't used to it.)