Upgrading Windows XP machines?
During the conference call my team had on Friday, we were discussing the upcoming content we are planning for the August-December timeframe. One of my team members who shall remain nameless stated that most of the customers he has talked to aren't upgrading existing Windows XP machines to Windows Vista. Instead, they are just buying new machines with Windows Vista as the old XP machines roll off the books and are re-purposed, or die.
Is that accurate? Is that what you are doing?
None of the security, network, search, etc. improvements warrant an upgrade of an existing machine, even with Aero glass turned off so that it performs on par or better than Windows XP?
[UPDATE for 5/18] For those of you that want to call me a confused idiot and other derogatory remarks, or want to spit venom at Microsoft in the form of comments here, don't bother because I am unlikely to publish your art. If you want to be polite, courteous and offer some insight into the decisions you or your customers are making, then that is welcome.
My wife thinks you are all crazy. The says Spider Solitaire alone is worth the upgrade to Windows Vista. Grin.
[UPDATE for 5/19] I watch referrals to my blog and noticed a few of you have picked up on what you think is a story here. First of all, you should know this article has no basis in fact. The person on my team that made the comment was offering an opinion but he has hardly spoken to every Microsoft customer and gathered any empirical data to support such a statement. Second, the small smattering of comments don’t indicate any particular fact or trend either. My questions were posed to initiate some dialog on the subject, nothing more.
I am always perplexed at why people go looking for dirt. I guess dirt sells. I’d rather have a conversation about what we are doing right and wrong. Offer an opinion on which way I think people should go. So here’s mine.
Buying a machine with Windows Vista is a smart move. If the OEM has done their job, then the out-of-box experience should be good. Your experience is going to vary depending on the OEM and of course they know if they do a sub par job, your return business is at stake.
As for the upgrade question, this is something you’ll have to decide but it should not be too terribly hard to test. We worked hard to provide you an array of hardware and software compatibility tools.
Windows Vista offers a lot of benefits, even for older machines. I’m running Windows Vista Enterprise on a Compaq Evo n620c and it runs very nicely. The machine is nearly five years old and only has one gig of RAM. Your experience will vary and I respect the decisions you make.
I just want to know why you make the decisions, and what we can do better down the road. That’s what blogs are for. Having that conversation.
