Vista

[-(Xyphox)-]

Ok, i have to make a box to show the big wigs what vista is going to be like and such for a big meeting on monday, I dont have time to wait for the CD, does anyone know where i can download the beta?
I need the latest build of vista and the beta of office
Company is planing a complete upgrade to vista First Quater of 07, So they want to know what its like now...
Help

 

[Dan_D]

Why? What is the purpose of such a quick upgrade. The product won't have yet matured by then.

Plus since it is still in Beta, what you see now may not be representative of the final product. Several features may be added or deleted. Plus Vista doesn't work with a lot of hardware right now. I know I have been unable to get it to work with my Creative X-FI card and it doesn't support SLI very well.

It just seems ignorant for a company to plan to adopt something that isn't even finished right when it becomes available. Must testing would need to be done on an enviorment to ensure that it would work correctly.

Just what feature or features do they even think it needs?

As for being more helpful, well I am sure someone has it for download someplace. Have you looked for torrent files of it?

 

[po134]

Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista. The Customer Preview Program is now closed. We have reached our program capacity and no new orders are being accepted. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Public beta 2 is closed and you won' be able to try vista til RC1 comes out in early september.

There is no legal way without subscrising to microsoft program to actually get Vista right now

 

[Dan_D]

Public beta 2 is closed and you won' be able to try vista til RC1 comes out in early september.

There is no legal way without subscrising to microsoft program to actually get Vista right now

This is true.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

Public beta 2 is closed and you won' be able to try vista til RC1 comes out in early september.

There is no legal way without subscrising to microsoft program to actually get Vista right now

Yeah i saw that, i did the quiz thing for the CD, guess it will have to wait. The purpose of this is just to show management what they can expect from vista.

 

[Deleted member 65081]

A full upgrade to Vista in Q1 2007? Would you mind me asking what company this is?

Anyhow, on topic. The naughty way would be to use a torrent, but you will still need to provide a valid product key to install Vista. The way you should do it, working for a company who is insane enough to upgrade to Vista nearly immediatly, is to have them pay for a proper MS developer network account and get it legally and from a reliable source ('the' source).

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

The company is Oetiker.INC we are world wide and stay at the leading edge of technology and the IT department and most of managament believe that Vista is going to be a great upgrade for the company. Our Swiss Head Quaters is heading this project. I need vista just for a meeting basically for now. One of the main reason's we will be going to vista in 2007 is because of vista's security model, http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/feat/secfeat.mspx
sums it up well, i'll post more while in a few (in a meeting)

 

[djnes]

A prime example of the problem in some corporate arenas these days. There's a complete and total lack of common sense to be spending time and money (and man-hours) planning an actual rollout of a product that may not even be released during the time frame of the project. If you're company was truly on the cutting edge of IT, they'd understand this more. It's always been my experience that the more knowledgeable an organization is, the more cautious they are about new products. The "doomed-to-fail", "we-are-l33t" companies are the ones jumping into the pool headfirst before checking if it's filled or not. Furthurmore, I'd be willing to bet that XP Pro SP2 will be more secure than Vista is upon it's release. I sincerely hope that changes, and fast, but it's not likely.

Tell you're big-whigs to slow down, and wait for a final product to hold so it can be accurately tested in their environment. As Dan_D mentioned, it doesn't handle some basic hardware and configs right now, so it's definitely not ready to be evaluated for production at this point. It should be evaluated as a beta, and it's insane to plan a rollout around a beta.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

A prime example of the problem in some corporate arenas these days. There's a complete and total lack of common sense to be spending time and money (and man-hours) planning an actual rollout of a product that may not even be released during the time frame of the project. If you're company was truly on the cutting edge of IT, they'd understand this more. It's always been my experience that the more knowledgeable an organization is, the more cautious they are about new products. The "doomed-to-fail", "we-are-l33t" companies are the ones jumping into the pool headfirst before checking if it's filled or not. Furthurmore, I'd be willing to bet that XP Pro SP2 will be more secure than Vista is upon it's release. I sincerely hope that changes, and fast, but it's not likely.

Tell you're big-whigs to slow down, and wait for a final product to hold so it can be accurately tested in their environment. As Dan_D mentioned, it doesn't handle some basic hardware and configs right now, so it's definitely not ready to be evaluated for production at this point. It should be evaluated as a beta, and it's insane to plan a rollout around a beta.

I am very aware of this and we are not plan a role out around a beta, none of the big wigs have even seen what vista is or looks like. Vista will be released in Nov of this year and we are going to start adapating vista (if its ready) already march-april maybe even later. As for the hardware, all the computer's in the company are the same. All desktops are HP's and laptops are dell's. I know the laptops will not handle vista, but all of our desktops are designed for vista, each with 2 gigs of ram and big enough video cards to handle vista.

 

[Kaos]

I figured Id say it before anyone else does.

You're HOPING vista will be released by then.
Im still using win2000 and server2000 in a bunch of places

 

[djnes]

none of the big wigs have even seen what vista is or looks like.

But they're ready to greenlight the manpower and budget for a rollout?

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

I figured Id say it before anyone else does.

You're HOPING vista will be released by then.
Im still using win2000 and server2000 in a bunch of places

we still have a few 2k boxes because of software not being avaibale for xp, rest of the work stations are xp. For server's we have one 2k server rest are 2k3 server's.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

But they're ready to greenlight the manpower and budget for a rollout?

Yes, Swiss HQ would love to have it today of possible..... Our company has more money than...... check out the companies website www.oetiker.com

 

[djnes]

Yes, Swiss HQ would love to have it today of possible..... Our company has more money than...... check out the companies website www.oetiker.com

I'm not doubting that. My comments are meant to be for your benefit, from one IT admin to another. If you go along with this Vista rollout, and it turns out Vista is one giant dud, guess who the big whigs will be using as the scapegoat. It's okay to beta test a new OS or software. I have a machine running Vista Beta 2 and Office Beta 2007, just to ehck it out for our environment. That being said, it's also your responsibility to make sure the company doesn't make a mistake. Most often, the people begging for a product or technology are the ones least likely to understand it, and more importantly, the risks.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

I'm not doubting that. My comments are meant to be for your benefit, from one IT admin to another. If you go along with this Vista rollout, and it turns out Vista is one giant dud, guess who the big whigs will be using as the scapegoat. It's okay to beta test a new OS or software. I have a machine running Vista Beta 2 and Office Beta 2007, just to ehck it out for our environment. That being said, it's also your responsibility to make sure the company doesn't make a mistake. Most often, the people begging for a product or technology are the ones least likely to understand it, and more importantly, the risks.

Yeah, i understand this complete i dont want this to come back and haunt me. I know better to get something right when it releases why i have yet to buy a Conroe . Though i am admin i am just a pawn when it comes to the Management Staff. I can only give my recommandations... Swiss usually's gets the final say

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

We work in IT, it behooves us to use things for 3-6 months before we give them to users. As an IT person you can sit and spin, or you can be proactive and look at things and determine how you are going to make them work. Maybe Vista is as good as some say, maybe it is as bad as others say… only one way to find out.


Security would be the main reason.
New features and integration of components would be the second one.
The simple fact that XP was released Dec 2001 and will have no licenses available starting Nov/Dec 2007…. And will likely have support dropped in 2008 is really good enough for me

 

[Frobozz]

Yes, Swiss HQ would love to have it today of possible..... Our company has more money than......

Should be easy then. You'll need to go sign up for the MSDN and you can try out all sorts of beta junk.

Download the Latest Windows Vista

If you are not already a member of the Windows Vista beta program, there are three other ways to obtain the latest beta version of Windows Vista:

* MSDN Subscriptions - If you have an MSDN Subscription (Operating System level or higher), you can download Windows Vista Beta 2.
(Read information on purchasing an MSDN Subscription)
* Windows Vista Beta Program - If you wish to become a beta member, you can do so by registering for the world-wide Windows Vista Beta Experience. There you can download or order Windows Vista Beta 2 and receive additional resources, specialist knowledge, and bonus material.
* Windows Vista Beta 2 Customer Preview Program
- Windows Vista Beta 2 is now available via the Customer Preview Program (CPP). Visit the Get Ready for Windows Vista site to download or order Windows Vista Beta 2.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

Should be easy then. You'll need to go sign up for the MSDN and you can try out all sorts of beta junk.

I have a cd on the way, no need to sign up for msdn right now

 

[cmpsr2000]

wow I envy how proactive your company is with technology. The one I'm working for probably won't approve vista for use until 2008-9, and even then I doubt IT will get it that much earlier.

Of course, I say this as I'm typing on my work PC which is running Vista Beta Build 5472

we don't really care about the company regulations in my division

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

wow I envy how proactive your company is with technology. The one I'm working for probably won't approve vista for use until 2008-9, and even then I doubt IT will get it that much earlier.

Of course, I say this as I'm typing on my work PC which is running Vista Beta Build 5472

we don't really care about the company regulations in my division

That’s why we will install it now, and test it with our applications. If it screws up our applications, we have to wait and see what Microsoft our application vendors do in the next 6 months to 1.5 years, if our applications work fine with it… then who cares if it has a bug that it breaks a flight simulator.

Microsoft has done an awesome job of releasing fist cut apps with low defect rates since it started its .net imitative. Most of the server products over the last 5 years have had less than 20 bugs fixed by SP1 rollouts. Maybe the will fail with Vista, but there is only one way to find out.

I rolled out Windows 2000 release candidate 2 to our CEO long before Microsoft shipped it. She had an IBM ThinkPad that had sooooo many problems with Windows NT 4, that I figured it couldn’t be any worse. She was happy, and we didn’t install the Windows 2000 released product for 6 months after it shipped. We rolled out Windows XP to 40% of our user base before Microsoft released SP1.

The plan would be to test beta….. and then probably give 2-5 power users the initial release of Vista on a voluntary basis. They would understand that they were guinea pigs and that problems on their machines would take time to solve. If that’s successful for 2-3 months, then we get a handful of maybe 10 more test users including a couple of sales guys out in the field. If that’s successful, then we make an image and slowly start rolling it out…. Hitting 1 person in each group of new software until its thoroughly tested.

 

[Mike160]

You wanna really WOW the "big wigs" show them Suse Linux !!! forget Vista...for now.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

You wanna really WOW the "big wigs" show them Suse Linux !!! forget Vista...for now.

yeah... No lets not go there

Proposing something like that for your average computer user would WOW most IT managers right out of a job….. kinda like showing them an Apple IPOD or a Microsoft XBOX.

Proposing it for a server room, and showing them some cost savings usually impresses them….. until they realize that they have to pay their IT people 20-30% more than the IT guys that they have to support Microsoft products.

Every Gardner study to date has shown that Linux has a ‘total cost of ownership’ 2 to 3 times higher than windows.

 

[Taffy Apple]

Wow. Vista. We're still running Win2K.

One of the main reason's we will be going to vista in 2007 is because of vista's security model

The anything program can run unchecked oh how did that get on there model you mean.

Oh of course, passwords and user privilages. How come we never thought of that before. Protected mode for IE, great stuff. Watch all the new wonderful ways hackers find round that!

I'm all for using Vista right away, in a controlled locked away environment thats not in anyway connected to the outside world. That way you can give MS a hand finding all the holes they left in their OS. Using an untested system on you corpnet from the off though is asking for trouble.

 

[Kaos]

Unfortunately we have to at least test it pretty much ASAP here because we develop software here and it will undoubtedly be run by one of our customers and we can just say "we dont support that"

 

[GreNME]

The original poster is either a) outright lying to everyone about being some admin for this company he's talking about, or b) some low-level monkey trying to earn brownie points for some worthless middle-manager who promised too much without first doing research.

Either way, this person is asking for us to do his homework for him, and that's just downright ridiculous. If the dude were really a professional, they would be on the MSDN public newsgroups this very second and would have already been in communication with (via e-mail and phone) Microsoft working on expediting a CD or providing a download for an already registered individual. Hell, they would have probably already gotten the number of the regional MS office (I know mine). Microsoft is not averse to going a tiny bit out of its way to make companies happy, especially when there is a shoo-in for a huge early order of their flagship product. Hell, I've represented a number of small companies as well as very large ones, and I've seen Microsoft make things available to each company in ways one wouldn't even think a giant like Microsoft would consider. Despite good or bad software (opinion) and regardless of their past monopolistic behavior, Microsoft is exquisitely skilled at one thing in particular: keeping its business customers happy. I've seen everything from free software offers to custom-compiled hotfixes come from Microsoft to businesses. If you, as an IT professional, are unable to take advantage of the extra enabling that Microsoft makes available to companies, then you are doing something wrong.

The original poster sounds like he wants Vista to fall into his outstretched hands. If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets, dude. You have some phone calls to make-- better snap to.

Quick note: I am not trying to say with this post that Microsoft is any more ethical, positive, special, or whatever than any other giant company out there. I am not trying to say Microsoft's software is the greatest. I am saying that, as far as their practices with business clients ranging from small business to large enterprise, Microsoft makes available exponentially more options for solving a wide range of problems. Add to that the fact that there are loads of newsgroups out there to access plenty of MS professionals, employees, and services, and you have a whole lot of bases covered. Whether they make good software or not, whether they are a monopoly or not, Microsoft has a regular practice of playing the business customer satisfaction game very well.

 

[HHunt]

Proposing it for a server room, and showing them some cost savings usually impresses them….. until they realize that they have to pay their IT people 20-30% more than the IT guys that they have to support Microsoft products.

Every Gardner study to date has shown that Linux has a ‘total cost of ownership’ 2 to 3 times higher than windows.

Not this old debate again.
Read this, or perhaps just the study it's refering to.
I sort of liked this one too.

And yes, these linux-friendly studies were done on behalf of linux companies. Much like the ones from gardner were paid for by MS. Notice a trend?

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

All it takes is a basic security class to understand which OS is more vulnerable. Of course Windows will be hacked, 90+% of the world uses it. Who wants to waste their time writing viruses and hacking 5% of something??? Yeah, hacking the hacker community would get you a wonderful reputation. The way Linux handles ports, buffers syn/acks, and malformed packets is a hacker’s paradise… The only purpose of a smurt, Christmas tree, or winnuke attack today is to get information to exploit a Linux kernel.

You do not seem to understand what protected mode is. User names and passwords (UAC) are a very small part of protected mode, and has existed in Windows and Linux nearly the same as far back as Windows NT. Sure 95% of home users are morons and use their administrator account for surfing the web. Those same moron users would use the root logon to surf the web on a Linux box. User names and passwords and a user giving a privilege a higher priority than it needs is 99% of the security problems on the web…. and the fix is more educated users.

Where Windows and Linux differ and where Linux has had a dominantly better model in the past is that Linux uses user mode and not kernel mode for a much higher percentage of drivers than Microsoft. Microsoft decides rather than match it… they would beat it. They moved essentially everything out of kernel mode and into user mode, and then secured the user mode sessions from each other (MIC/UIPI). The thing that most Linux or anti-Microsoft users fail to understand is that when Microsoft developed its original model with more items running in kernel mode, it was based on trading off relatively trivial (yes trivial-see below) security concerns for huge gains in performance.

Why trivial? Protected mode in regards to IE will only protect a computer that is protected from its user. That is to say that a user can, and must, be able to give an IE process higher user level access to the system than what it has by default. That’s just the nature of the integration between the computer and the web. Moving it out of kernel mode, only moves the responsibility as to what IE can exploit to the user rather than to the system. If a user has or knows an account with admin privileges he can still give IE the ability to perform with admin privileges (essentially the same as kernel mode, but there are some threads and some processes that even an administrator can’t touch directly). Protected mode---or moving things to user mode is theoretically more secure because if its implemented correctly a hacker CANNOT exploit the system to raise his privileges (read some books on object oriented programming and object inheritance—you can’t give privileges you don’t have), but in practice only a few kernel mode flaws actually ever exploited the fact that IE ran components in the kernel. The vast majority (all but maybe 6-12) of IE problems, spy ware, viruses, and other exploits for Windows are the result of the user approving the computer to do things in his elevated context and not the a result of the hacker figuring out how to make IE do things in the context of the system.

I will be the first to criticize Microsoft if there are flaws in execution for a hacker to take advantage of, but their security model itself is light years ahead of any body else.

User Account Control (UAC), which implements the Principle of Least Privilege.

UAC will help users run Vista without requiring administrator privileges to be productive. Administrators can also run most applications with a limited privilege, but have "elevation potential" for specific administrative tasks and application functions.

Mandatory Integrity Control (MIC), a model in which data can be configured to prevent lower-integrity applications from accessing it. The primary integrity levels are Low, Medium, High, and System. Processes are assigned an integrity level in their access token. Securable objects such as files and registry keys have a new mandatory access control entry (ACE) in the System Access Control List (ACL).

User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI) blocks lower-integrity from accessing higher-integrity processes. For example, a lower-integrity process cannot send window messages or hook or attach to higher priority processes This helps protect against "shatter attacks." A shatter attack is when one process tries to elevate privileges by injecting code into another process using windows messages.

 

[Mike160]

All it takes is a basic security class to understand which OS is more vulnerable. Of course Windows will be hacked, 90+% of the world uses it. Who wants to waste their time writing viruses and hacking 5% of something??? Yeah, hacking the hacker community would get you a wonderful reputation. The way Linux handles ports, buffers syn/acks, and malformed packets is a hacker’s paradise… The only purpose of a smurt, Christmas tree, or winnuke attack today is to get information to exploit a Linux kernel.

You do not seem to understand what protected mode is. User names and passwords (UAC) are a very small part of protected mode, and has existed in Windows and Linux nearly the same as far back as Windows NT. Sure 95% of home users are morons and use their administrator account for surfing the web. Those same moron users would use the root logon to surf the web on a Linux box. User names and passwords and a user giving a privilege a higher priority than it needs is 99% of the security problems on the web…. and the fix is more educated users.

Where Windows and Linux differ and where Linux has had a dominantly better model in the past is that Linux uses user mode and not kernel mode for a much higher percentage of drivers than Microsoft. Microsoft decides rather than match it… they would beat it. They moved essentially everything out of kernel mode and into user mode, and then secured the user mode sessions from each other (MIC/UIPI). The thing that most Linux or anti-Microsoft users fail to understand is that when Microsoft developed its original model with more items running in kernel mode, it was based on trading off relatively trivial (yes trivial-see below) security concerns for huge gains in performance.

Why trivial? Protected mode in regards to IE will only protect a computer that is protected from its user. That is to say that a user can, and must, be able to give an IE process higher user level access to the system than what it has by default. That’s just the nature of the integration between the computer and the web. Moving it out of kernel mode, only moves the responsibility as to what IE can exploit to the user rather than to the system. If a user has or knows an account with admin privileges he can still give IE the ability to perform with admin privileges (essentially the same as kernel mode, but there are some threads and some processes that even an administrator can’t touch directly). Protected mode---or moving things to user mode is theoretically more secure because if its implemented correctly a hacker CANNOT exploit the system to raise his privileges (read some books on object oriented programming and object inheritance—you can’t give privileges you don’t have), but in practice only a few kernel mode flaws actually ever exploited the fact that IE ran components in the kernel. The vast majority (all but maybe 6-12) of IE problems, spy ware, viruses, and other exploits for Windows are the result of the user approving the computer to do things in his elevated context and not the a result of the hacker figuring out how to make IE do things in the context of the system.

I will be the first to criticize Microsoft if there are flaws in execution for a hacker to take advantage of, but their security model itself is light years ahead of any body else.

User Account Control (UAC), which implements the Principle of Least Privilege.

UAC will help users run Vista without requiring administrator privileges to be productive. Administrators can also run most applications with a limited privilege, but have "elevation potential" for specific administrative tasks and application functions.

Mandatory Integrity Control (MIC), a model in which data can be configured to prevent lower-integrity applications from accessing it. The primary integrity levels are Low, Medium, High, and System. Processes are assigned an integrity level in their access token. Securable objects such as files and registry keys have a new mandatory access control entry (ACE) in the System Access Control List (ACL).

User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI) blocks lower-integrity from accessing higher-integrity processes. For example, a lower-integrity process cannot send window messages or hook or attach to higher priority processes This helps protect against "shatter attacks." A shatter attack is when one process tries to elevate privileges by injecting code into another process using windows messages.

Blah, Blah, Blah.... good luck at your meeting though....

 

[Kaos]

All it takes is a basic security class to understand which OS is more vulnerable. Of course Windows will be hacked, 90+% of the world uses it. Who wants to waste their time writing viruses and hacking 5% of something??? Yeah, hacking the hacker community would get you a wonderful reputation. The way Linux handles ports, buffers syn/acks, and malformed packets is a hacker’s paradise… The only purpose of a smurt, Christmas tree, or winnuke attack today is to get information to exploit a Linux kernel.

And all the hackers claims of cracking OS X has gone....where?

You do not seem to understand what protected mode is. User names and passwords (UAC) are a very small part of protected mode, and has existed in Windows and Linux nearly the same as far back as Windows NT. Sure 95% of home users are morons and use their administrator account for surfing the web. Those same moron users would use the root logon to surf the web on a Linux box. User names and passwords and a user giving a privilege a higher priority than it needs is 99% of the security problems on the web…. and the fix is more educated users.

the fact of the matter is windows ushers you into the administrative account while all other modern OS's usher you away from it by default

Where Windows and Linux differ and where Linux has had a dominantly better model in the past is that Linux uses user mode and not kernel mode for a much higher percentage of drivers than Microsoft. Microsoft decides rather than match it… they would beat it. They moved essentially everything out of kernel mode and into user mode, and then secured the user mode sessions from each other (MIC/UIPI). The thing that most Linux or anti-Microsoft users fail to understand is that when Microsoft developed its original model with more items running in kernel mode, it was based on trading off relatively trivial (yes trivial-see below) security concerns for huge gains in performance.

What makes linux insecure in this regard? Why is it that linux still runs this way and can be run on rediculously old hardware at faster speeds than comparable versions of windows? Where is the gain in performance (or stability for that matter)

Why trivial? Protected mode in regards to IE will only protect a computer that is protected from its user. That is to say that a user can, and must, be able to give an IE process higher user level access to the system than what it has by default. That’s just the nature of the integration between the computer and the web. Moving it out of kernel mode, only moves the responsibility as to what IE can exploit to the user rather than to the system. If a user has or knows an account with admin privileges he can still give IE the ability to perform with admin privileges (essentially the same as kernel mode, but there are some threads and some processes that even an administrator can’t touch directly). Protected mode---or moving things to user mode is theoretically more secure because if its implemented correctly a hacker CANNOT exploit the system to raise his privileges (read some books on object oriented programming and object inheritance—you can’t give privileges you don’t have), but in practice only a few kernel mode flaws actually ever exploited the fact that IE ran components in the kernel. The vast majority (all but maybe 6-12) of IE problems, spy ware, viruses, and other exploits for Windows are the result of the user approving the computer to do things in his elevated context and not the a result of the hacker figuring out how to make IE do things in the context of the system.

Ill agree about the progress in regards to IE's security, Im still going to use firefox though because it understands CSS (the way its supposed to be handled)
I will be the first to criticize Microsoft if there are flaws in execution for a hacker to take advantage of, but their security model itself is light years ahead of any body else.

User Account Control (UAC), which implements the Principle of Least Privilege.

UAC will help users run Vista without requiring administrator privileges to be productive. Administrators can also run most applications with a limited privilege, but have "elevation potential" for specific administrative tasks and application functions.

Way to be original microsoft, *nix has been doing this for years.

Mandatory Integrity Control (MIC), a model in which data can be configured to prevent lower-integrity applications from accessing it. The primary integrity levels are Low, Medium, High, and System. Processes are assigned an integrity level in their access token. Securable objects such as files and registry keys have a new mandatory access control entry (ACE) in the System Access Control List (ACL).

User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI) blocks lower-integrity from accessing higher-integrity processes. For example, a lower-integrity process cannot send window messages or hook or attach to higher priority processes This helps protect against "shatter attacks." A shatter attack is when one process tries to elevate privileges by injecting code into another process using windows messages.

I give it a month before that breaks or is exploited in some way.

 

[Mike160]

Check this out .... 20,000 students and teachers must be more adept at Linux than the staff employed at your company....



http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=192201386

 

[Kaos]

I think it's important to realize that there IS a cost for using open source (time is money) but after the initial learning curve is floundered I really love linux for general use workstations.

I donate to my favorite projects as well (free does not mean cost!)

 

[bbz_Ghost]

The company is Oetiker.INC we are world wide and stay at the leading edge of technology and the IT department and most of managament believe that Vista is going to be a great upgrade for the company. Our Swiss Head Quaters is heading this project. I need vista just for a meeting basically for now. One of the main reason's we will be going to vista in 2007 is because of vista's security model, http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/feat/secfeat.mspx
sums it up well, i'll post more while in a few (in a meeting)

I know I'm late to the party (aka this thread), but if you're working for a company that wants to "stay at the leading edge of technology" the first thing I'd think your company would be is a Microsoft partner in some respects. To say that *no one* in your entire organization is a registered beta tester or has access to MSDN content (which would get you Vista access) is simply beyond my ability to comprehend.

You can't "stay on the leading edge" by playing catch up if you're already way behind.

 

[LittleMe]

I'd have to agree with Ghost. If your company has so much money and wants to stay on the bleeding edge then how do you not even have a TechNet Plus or MSDN sub. Hell, they even just added downloads like with MSDN to TechNet Plus or you'd already have it on CD/DVD.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

Not this old debate again.
Read this, or perhaps just the study it's refering to.
I sort of liked this one too.

And yes, these linux-friendly studies were done on behalf of linux companies. Much like the ones from gardner were paid for by MS. Notice a trend?

Sorry for delay, but was gone all weekend

Linux guys like to come up with new data to revive a dead debate. There is room to debate the TCO and functionality on particular applications between windows and linux in the server room, but not on the desktop. Even if Windows cost more to run [which it doesn’t]--- ERP, SPC, CRM, MRP, BI, CRM all of the major enterprise applications in the real world only have Windows clients, except for the few that have web interfaces tailored to IE. Buying licenses to run Windows in a virtual machine is ridicules since you would double your OS costs and using Windows virtual APIs in Linux emulators like Vines is silly because Microsoft doesn’t document a large number of its APIs to avoid such pirating of its OS. Therefore the majority of complex software will not run in an emulator.
Gartner a puppet for Microsoft?? Your friend needs to do about 10 minutes of fact checking. While many small companies are commissioned by Linux players to show that Linux has a lower TCO… groups like Gartner and IDC do not allow their data gathering to be commissioned by Microsoft or anyone else. Gartner and IDC are the authorities ** in the business precisely because they are independent subscription based research firms. Occasionally HP, Dell, IBM, Sun and yes M$ have paid Gartner to make private subscription based research public.
So your friend puts Robert Frances group (20 researchers in 1 US offices) and Enterprise management associates (27 researches in 2 US offices) as equal to Gartner (over 550 researchers in 75 countries) huh? Incidentally IDC has 850 analysts in 50 countries, and oddly enough their last major study supported Gartner’s findings. Funny that Microsoft would buy off the 2 major research firms in the world, and have the lowest TCO but allow themselves to be ranked in or at the bottom of reliability until Server 2000. Oh wait… lets think… maybe the data is actually impartial? ? ?

This report is based on 200 surveys. The report is based on lots and lots of “if they were using sophisticated management tools”. So they actually narrowed down their survey results to a very small percentage of those 200 surveys where it supported their claims. Its not valid to do that, unless you compare that only to the cheapest operating Windows installations, using equally available sophisticated tools (RIS, AD software deployment, WSUS, E-policy, etc). To compare operations using sophisticated Linux enterprise management tools to all Windows installations is a mockery. They have to stretch pretty far to make the data match what the people paying for the survey wanted the results to indicate. I wonder what would happen if they narrowed down the TCO of windows to take into account the Windows companies that use ‘sophisticated’ tools like WSUS to automatically deploy security patches, RIS to automatically deploy Windows clients, AD to automatically deploy Windows software (all free) and E-policy to automatically deploy virus and security software. When you compare Windows in the hands of someone that equally knows what they are doing to someone using Linux, the debate goes away. The problem is that 75+% of windows shops have less than qualified people to manage Windows whereas your found incompetent at Linux or Unix pretty quick.

** The results speak for themselves

Google

1,900,600 hits on “gartner group”
562,000 hits on “international data corporation” the proper name for “IDC” which has over 52,000,000 hits.
132,000 hits on “Robert frances group”
155,000 hits on “enterprise management associates”

 

[Deleted member 65081]

That topic is extremely debatable and probably belongs in another thread.

Anyway, how did your meeting on Vista go? Did you inform everyone that a Q1 '07 upgrade may be impossible, as there is still no assurance a retail product will exist at that point? Did you manage to give them a showcase box of the beta release?

 

[GreNME]

I think it's important to realize that there IS a cost for using open source (time is money) but after the initial learning curve is floundered I really love linux for general use workstations.

I donate to my favorite projects as well (free does not mean cost!)

Thank you for this comment. I agree wholeheartedly.

I'm a sysadmin in a Windows environment, and am a mostly-Windows guy when it comes to personally picking environments, but I do have to say that a lot of the old stigma attached to Linux is quickly becoming irrelevant. More and more am I finding very well-thought-out development projects that utilize the Linux OS as their target environment, and while nearly none of those projects work directly with the Linux kernel the benefits of their open releases has served to greatly increase my interest in Linux as an OS. So, while there has rarely been a Linux distro that has been compelling to me in and of itself, these projects that are built for *nix have made the idea of using a *nix in my working (and home) environments a comfortable and viable option. I may still be a mostly-Windows guy in a mostly-Windows world, but for anyone to disregard Linux (or any *nix) outright in today's world is a quick path toward obsolescence.

Not free as in beer, free as in options and vendor lock-in. I don't blame Microsoft for vendor lock-in (any more), but the fact remains that vendors use Windows as their number one platform (and Apple as their number two platform) to create a revolving clientele of vendor-locked companies and individuals.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

That topic is extremely debatable and probably belongs in another thread.

Anyway, how did your meeting on Vista go? Did you inform everyone that a Q1 '07 upgrade may be impossible, as there is still no assurance a retail product will exist at that point? Did you manage to give them a showcase box of the beta release?

all the manager's like vista and we are going to do what i planed,
The plan will be to test beta….. and then probably give 2-5 power users the initial release of Vista on a voluntary basis. They would understand that they were guinea pigs and that problems on their machines would take time to solve. If that’s successful for 2-3 months, then we get a handful of maybe 10 more test users including a couple of sales guys out in the field. If that’s successful, then we make an image and slowly start rolling it out…. Hitting 1 person in each group of new software until its thoroughly tested.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

And all the hackers claims of cracking OS X has gone....where?
the fact of the matter is windows ushers you into the administrative account while all other modern OS's usher you away from it by default

What makes linux insecure in this regard? Why is it that linux still runs this way and can be run on rediculously old hardware at faster speeds than comparable versions of windows? Where is the gain in performance (or stability for that matter)

Ill agree about the progress in regards to IE's security, Im still going to use firefox though because it understands CSS (the way its supposed to be handled)
I will be the first to criticize Microsoft if there are flaws in execution for a hacker to take advantage of, but their security model itself is light years ahead of any body else.

Way to be original microsoft, *nix has been doing this for years.

I give it a month before that breaks or is exploited in some way.

1. What is your definition of hacking an OS?

OS X has had a number of daemon and buffer problems just like windows. Windows won the open security web server challenge in 2005 with Windows 2003 server running IIS and ISA server. They only had 1 rule in the firewall!

2. Linux is a modern language, have you ever heard of Unix? Bell Labs invented it in the 1960’s, and the text based configuration has been extended a little bit—but it hasn’t changed any. The registry hive (essentially a database) is a much more modern and efficient methodology for organizing system configuration parameters.

Besides that it’s just not true. I am running version 9 of Linux, and all the installation only lead me to create a root password. So if that has changed it has changed in the last 3 years, that is newer than what Microsoft has released a new OS. Any industry trends that you have seen in improved operating systems can be fairly evaluated against Windows Vista…. But if something came out in 2002 or later, you have to compare it on a per release comparison.

Just like Oracle and SQL run in 6 year development cycles and Oracle and MS release new versions 3 years apart…. For 3 years SQL has the latest and greatest features, and for the next 3 years Oracle has them before MS releases a new product. You have to compare apples to apples.

3. I said that Unix and Linux had dominated this with a better model. So there is no insecurity in Linux for this…… Microsoft is catching up, but in the process they are elevating the whole model up one notch.

To compare the complexity of the OS, Linux has about 5 million lines of code, Windows XP has 40 million lines of code, and Windows Vista is expected to have over 50 million lines of code…. Over 34 million lines of Windows Vista code is brand new from scratch. So its easy to argue that Microsoft essentially recreated all of the intellectual expertise in Linux – 6.5 times over. Like them or hate them… they are a company that does hire the most competent people that they can find, pays them very well, and organizes their work very well. They are an efficient operation.

Linux runs on ridiculously old hardware because as I established, it is a ridiculously old OS that has changed very little since the 1970’s before the internet was called the internet. Linux is and always will be a text based OS at its core, and only has been retrofitted with a number of GUI options that run on top of it. MS’ model is a GUI OS at the core. MS has financial insensitive to drive the changing and future of its OS into a more efficient and powerful OS, Linux has progressed very little from its founding principles. The problem is that once an open source system has a standard and agreed upon basis for a foundation, it’s not really possible to do anything but extend it. You’re not going to ever get a consensus of people at the core to say lets take everything we have learned in the last 50 years, and start over. The business world has no problem with fundamental paradigm shifts in thoughts, process, or technology and starting over. This is evidenced by the billions MS is spending by having 60,000 developers work on rewriting Windows for 5 years.

The performance gain is a Windows to Windows comparison. Had they used the Linux model back in the days of 8086/8088, 80286, 80386, 80486 processors it wouldn’t have been feasible. UNIX was entirely text based for many years after Windows headed to a GUI interface to bring computers to the masses.

4. Use whatever floats your boat… but people will always be writing CSS and everything else for the masses. Good or bad the masses are using IE today and for the foreseeable future. I would rather have the option for both, so that I can always see what works. When Microsoft creates something, such as ODBC…. It essentially becomes the standard regardless of what is officially published simply because it is on 90+% of the computer base.

5. Nobody has ever legitimately claimed that Microsoft is an innovator! They take what works (either buy buying it or recreating it from the ground up), package it for the masses and sell it cheap. To be able to buy an OS that has more than $2.5 billion of R&D in it on a computer for less than $100 is incredible.

Most businesses are fine using technology that is tried and true. We don’t want our servers to be the latest and greatest experiment released upon us by some programmer that thought he had a good idea. Its fine that Microsoft releases stuff to business 2-3 years after its conceptualized, after a thorough R&D vetting process and after a number of companies are using the software live.

6. put your money where his mouth is. $50 says that there won’t be any exploits that can give remote control of the machine or give a remote person access to the data on the computer that can be installed from a web browser running in the context of a ‘standard’ use account (no privileges). The bet starts the day the Windows Vista home product ships and requires any patches available prior to its ship date to be installed and lasts for 1 month.

 

[Deleted member 65081]

all the manger's like vista

Cool. I assume you must have showed them the test box, did they just mess with the interface and say they liked it? Or what exactly did they like about it?

Hope you don't mind me asking for the details. The thought of such a bold move by a large company intrigues me. I'm only 25 with limited experience (4 years) being semi-important in IT, but from what I have seen and done it's quite opposite of the norm.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

Cool. I assume you must have showed them the test box, did they just mess with the interface and say they liked it? Or what exactly did they like about it?

Hope you don't mind me asking for the details. The thought of such a bold move by a large company intrigues me. I'm only 25 with limited experience (4 years) being semi-important in IT, but from what I have seen and done it's quite opposite of the norm.

I had vista runing on 2 test boxes, a Desktop and a laptop. Both machine's has Office 2007 as well. I let them spend the hole morning learning and playing around with vista to get their thoughts. All the manager's were quite computer savy so it was a plus. Today i am going to see if some of our company software that we use will run on vista. Cirtrux, ROI, Powerway, ect...