Windows 10 adoption rate having a hard time with businesses

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

...which are still present on both Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1. You don't need 10 for those.

. I was talking about how almost all the laptops that my school provides have like 30 + security updates they need to install since Windows 7 isn't aggressive when it comes to updates.

 

None of the teachers or students could bother updating unless they were harassed by Windows.

 

Windows 10 solves this issue.

[ThinkWithPortals]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

. I was talking about how almost all the laptops that my school provides have like 30 + security updates they need to install since Windows 7 isn't aggressive when it comes to updates.

 

None of the teachers or students could bother updating unless they were harassed by Windows.

 

Windows 10 solves this issue.

Not sure about you, but my school PCs ran Windows 7 but had a solution whereby the IT administrator could force-security-update all the PCs in the school, a la Windows 10. Can't remember the software name, will rack my brain for a few minutes...

[AlTech]

Just now, ThinkWithPortals said:

Not sure about you, but my school PCs ran Windows 7 but had a solution whereby the IT administrator could force-security-update all the PCs in the school, a la Windows 10. Can't remember the software name, will rack my brain for a few minutes...

Yeah, my school doesn't use that to my knowledge........

[ThinkWithPortals]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

Yeah, my school doesn't use that to my knowledge........

My memory's failed me, I can't remember the name of the software.

Anyway, if a business wanted security patches but didn't want a whole new OS I'm sure they could set up a system akin to what my old school had.

[JoshB2084]

14 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

That, and also, Vista was garbage.

Uhmmm , Vista was that not really bad. I was used it on 2009 Q1 Compaq Presario notebook till HDD started give up on me...

[AresKrieger]

1 hour ago, JoshB2084 said:

Uhmmm , Vista was that not really bad. I was used it on 2009 Q1 Compaq Presario notebook till HDD started give up on me...

That was 2+ years after release, if the initial launch is bad that will be all that anyone remembers, additionally a lot of PC's from the xp era couldn't run vista at all. And it took them over a year to fix issue issues like runtime errors (your computer would crash if it was on for a while regardless)

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

. I was talking about how almost all the laptops that my school provides have like 30 + security updates they need to install since Windows 7 isn't aggressive when it comes to updates.

 

None of the teachers or students could bother updating unless they were harassed by Windows.

 

Windows 10 solves this issue.

Because businesses don't need to have aggressive security updates, yes even important ones. In fact they'll go out of their way to deactivate them and deploy them if and when they're ready.

 

Look this is fairly simple: if you had to absolutely depend on your PC to make money. And I don't mean a little money but all of your revenue, all your money for food, shelter, paying the rent, etc. You'd probably be on Windows 7 for a good 10 years. It's fairly simple: a potential treat is secondary to an actual loss of revenue due to a bad update or downtime due to the update process.

[AresKrieger]

2 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

snip

I used the version available right before the cutoff date, and a version in January, on my laptop both caused performance issues and memory leaks, on my main PC I couldn't play several games unless I were to buy them on the windows store and a mic I had been using would not work whatsoever, and I kept getting weird errors (also the January version caused memory leaks on the main PC but that is less important now) . Stability of a product is a matter of perspective if you don't have problems it seems fine but if you do then the product is useless

 

As for your protest that companies are trying windows 10 via a trial, that is very few of them, most companies will not upgrade their current systems to a new OS regardless (and given windows 10's launch problems even more held back), the figure of .75% may be off but the number is still going to be under 5% regardless but the main point of the article still remains true.

[TidaLWaveZ]

I've worked in numerous IT departments and it's an extreme pain in the ass to migrate to a new OS.  There's so much involved in the process and it never ends because the users find new compatibility issues every day.  A lot of times companies have PC's that they will never update just because they have software running that doesn't work with newer OS's.  I know the last place I worked had Windows XP on a lot of computers in the factory because the software for the machinery would absolutely not work with anything newer than XP.

[Doobeedoo]

Well, rest aside, it would take time and all and not a single upgrade and restart done way. I guess they're monitoring how Anniversary Update does too.

[Delicieuxz]

4 hours ago, Morgan MLGman said:

That, and also, Vista was garbage.

4 hours ago, JoshB2084 said:

Uhmmm , Vista was that not really bad. I was used it on 2009 Q1 Compaq Presario notebook till HDD started give up on me...

2 hours ago, AresKrieger said:

That was 2+ years after release, if the initial launch is bad that will be all that anyone remembers, additionally a lot of PC's from the xp era couldn't run vista at all. And it took them over a year to fix issue issues like runtime errors (your computer would crash if it was on for a while regardless)

 

Vista was, and still is, a fantastic OS. The criticism towards it at its release focused on just two things:

 

a) a lack of integrated drivers, causing an, at-the-time, a very non-technically savvy public a lot of confusion and frustration in figuring out that they had to download drivers from their hardware manufacturers, and install them.

b) relatively-high hardware requirements.

 

The Vista OS itself was fantastic: It's basically Windows 7 with some extra power-user functionality, which is by no means a bad thing.

 

Also, Windows 7 has the exact same hardware requirements as Vista... it's just that by the time Windows 7 came around, everybody had upgraded their PCs to be able to run what is virtually the same OS. I ran Vista on a P4 2.4 Ghz GPU, with 4 GB of RAM, and I had 0 issues with performance.

 

Regarding the lack of 3rd-party drivers ready and integrated into the OS, Microsoft made things easier with Windows 7 by shipping the OS with lots of 3rd-party drivers already available within the OS. For any tech-savvy person, it wouldn't have mattered, but the general public was not very familiar with what is now basic computer awareness.

 

 

So, apart from two very understandable and resolvable aspects (which just happened to be very confusing to the public in 2007), Windows Vista was a solid and impressive OS. So solid and impressive of an OS that Windows 7 was merely a re-release of it, with integrated drivers, some removed power-user functionality, and a slightly-modified visual theme. And to dis either Vista or Windows 7 is to dis the other. To appreciate one is also to appreciate the other.

 

Also, some anecdotal Youtube videos suggest that Vista SP3 runs faster than Windows 7 SP1 on the same hardware .

 

If it weren't for the lack of 3rd-party drivers available for Vista today, and the lack of security updates from Microsoft, Windows Vista would still be just about as modern and competent as OS as Windows 7 (which is just as modern, and more competent an OS than Windows 10).

 

Also, Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10, are all heavily-based on the core OS that was designed as Vista. When somebody is running Windows 10, they're still mostly running Windows Vista. So, Vista could be said to be the longest-running, greatest, and most successful OS to-date.

[AresKrieger]

13 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

 

snip

As I said the OS had runtime errors at launch, this was later fixed (after some time) but the launch version was crap, did the OS become good, yes, but by then windows 7 was announced.

 

Either way it really doesn't matter much, the only reason vista was brought up in this thread was to draw parallels to the windows 7 to 10 transition in business, which unsurprisingly isn't happening as microsoft would like, just as what happened with vista and 8.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

4 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

Not sure about you, but my school PCs ran Windows 7 but had a solution whereby the IT administrator could force-security-update all the PCs in the school, a la Windows 10. Can't remember the software name, will rack my brain for a few minutes...

There are several probably, but LANDesk is one such software. I don't know how many config options they have, but the way they use it at work is to allow for longer than 4 hours postponements of reboot, but after the max limit is reached you are prompted to reboot no matter what, with an annoying, screen-covering Window. Prompted, but still nothing happens without your input. Notice I refer to reboots, not installs, since Windows downloads and installs updates automatically, and local administrator rights are not enough to change this setting, you need the Sysadmin.

Using enterprise versions of windows and corporate IT management tools really helps running IT at enterprises, corporations, and institutions more generally. Using Home versions for private consumers giving them all the freedom and control they should have, without any management tool either, doesn't work as well, unsurprisingly so.

 

9 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

 

Vista was, and still is, a fantastic OS. The criticism towards it at its release focused on just two things:

 

a) a lack of integrated drivers, causing an, at-the-time, a very non-technically savvy public a lot of confusion and frustration in figuring out that they had to download drivers from their hardware manufacturers, and install them.

b) relatively-high hardware requirements.

 

The Vista OS itself was fantastic: It's basically Windows 7 with some extra power-user functionality, which is by no means a bad thing.

 

Also, Windows 7 has the exact same hardware requirements as Vista... it's just that by the time Windows 7 came around, everybody had upgraded their PCs to be able to run what is virtually the same OS. I ran Vista on a P4 2.4 Ghz GPU, with 4 GB of RAM, and I had 0 issues with performance...

Ah, if only. But no. Windows Vista was the closest relative to Windows Me. It's not true that Vista and 7 were equally tough on hardware: when I migrated the same exact hardware from Vista to 7, performance increased dramatically. RAM usage plummeted, booting time decreased (even before switching to SSD), I cannot think of anything that didn't work at least marginally better. My original Vista installation was 3.5 years old when I migrated. It was 4 year ago. I never re-installed Win 7 since then, and it still runs smoothly like Vista never did even at day 1. It was garbage in 2009, and it was garbage all the way till 2012.

 

13 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

 

So, apart from two very understandable and resolvable aspects (which just happened to be very confusing to the public in 2007), Windows Vista was a solid and impressive OS. So solid and impressive of an OS that Windows 7 was merely a re-release of it, with integrated drivers, some removed power-user functionality, and a slightly-modified visual theme. And to dis either Vista or Windows 7 is to dis the other. To appreciate one is also to appreciate the other.

If by "Windows 7 was merely a re-release" you mean "Windows Vista was just a terrible, buggy beta version of WIndows 7", then I agree  

Yes, they are the same at the core. The difference is that Windows 7 was the actual OS worth releasing, while Vista was a failed attempt at releasing it too prematurely.

[Delicieuxz]

28 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Ah, if only. But no. Windows Vista was the closest relative to Windows Me. It's not true that Vista and 7 were equally tough on hardware: when I migrated the same exact hardware from Vista to 7, performance increased dramatically. RAM usage plummeted, booting time decreased (even before switching to SSD), I cannot think of anything that didn't work at least marginally better. My original Vista installation was 3.5 years old when I migrated. It was 4 year ago. I never re-installed Win 7 since then, and it still runs smoothly like Vista never did even at day 1. It was garbage in 2009, and it was garbage all the way till 2012.

Ah, but is truly is. Benchmarks prove that Vista and 7 are generally the same for performance. And when I made a Vista SP3 boot a year or so ago, just for fun, I didn't notice any loss in performance from 7. RAM usage was reduced in Windows 7 because Windows 7 reduced the number of running background services. But stuff runs the same on either OS. I can't think of anything that worked better or worse on Vista or 7. Stuff works normally on them both.

 

 

After the boot time and PC Mark score in this next video, everything else is the same. Also, the boot time is a WTF, since the above video demonstrates otherwise.

 

Crysis benchmark: +1.58 min FPS / +0.23 average FPS / +0.04 max FPS in Win 7 vs Vista

 

 

Quote

If by "Windows 7 was merely a re-release" you mean "Windows Vista was just a terrible, buggy beta version of WIndows 7", then I agree  

Yes, they are the same at the core. The difference is that Windows 7 was the actual OS worth releasing, while Vista was a failed attempt at releasing it too prematurely.

I never encountered a bug in using Vista for 2.7 years before Windows 7 released. The only BSODs I got were caused by me maxing out my 4 GB of RAM (which is the same cause of BSODs I've had in Windows 7, whereas in Windows 10, I've had BSODs for a variety of unknown things).

 

The primary difference between Vista and 7 wasn't about Vista and 7, but was about the general PC user's hardware having been upgraded sometime between XP and 7, and so public perception had adapted by the time Vista released. Other than that, they're both rock-solid, great performance OSes.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Just now, Delicieuxz said:

Ah, but Vista truly is. Benchmarks prove that Vista and 7 are generally the same for performance. And when I made a Vista boot a year or so ago, just for fun, I didn't notice any loss in performance from 7. RAM usage was reduced in Windows 7 because Windows 7 reduced the number of running background services. But stuff runs the same on either OS. I can't think of anything that worked better or worse on Vista or 7. Stuff works normally on them both.

That's, like, a crucial aspect of an OS? As in how much it gets in the way of the things you actually want to run? I never said it made programs run slower once you get them to run, I said it was a disaster just to boot and having it idling in the desktop, not to mention all the sluggishness induced by excessive page file usage while switching applications due to said excessive RAM usage. Yes, once it was finally done paging in and out and the program was running, there would be no difference at that point.

 

3 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

The primary difference between Vista and 7 wasn't about Vista and 7, but was about the general PC user's hardware having been upgraded sometime between XP and 7, and so public perception had adapted by the time Vista released. Other than that, they're both rock-solid, great performance OSes.

You said that before, but I insist, my appraisal of Vista vs 7 is based on using both on the same computer, with Vista updated all the way till 2012. It's not hardware, that was held constant.

[Delicieuxz]

18 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

That's, like, a crucial aspect of an OS? As in how much it gets in the way of the things you actually want to run? I never said it made programs run slower once you get them to run, I said it was a disaster just to boot and having it idling in the desktop, not to mention all the sluggishness induced by excessive page file usage while switching applications due to said excessive RAM usage. Yes, once it was finally done paging in and out and the program was running, there would be no difference at that point.

Well, I guess the other solution is to have more RAM. The idle RAM usage difference isn't huge, 19 - 20% in Win 7 vs ~26% in Vista, in the 4 GB RAM system used to test system statistics in a benchmark video above. So, Vista idles with around an extra 200 MB RAM usage than Windows 7.

 

I had 4 GB of RAM on my Vista OS, which is probably like having 8 - 12 GB of RAM today, and so it wasn't a problem for me. I was maxing out 8 GB of RAM in Windows 7 a whole lot more than I was maxing out 4 GB of RAM in Windows Vista (until I upgraded my 7 system to 16 GB), due to running more programs and different browsing habits by the time I had Win 7.

 

So long as RAM isn't being maxed, it isn't impacting OS performance. And like I said, one of the two main criticisms of Vista was relatively-high hardware requirements - for the time, and compared to the hardware that was already in people's XP systems. But Win 7 doesn't, practically-speaking, reduce hardware requirements, because it's not like 200 MB of RAM makes the average person need overall less RAM to handle their general PC usage. Though, I guess for some people, it made a difference during Vista's time. But the 200 MB difference means nothing by today's standards.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

6 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Well, I guess the other solution is to have more RAM. The idle RAM usage difference isn't huge, 19 - 20% in Win 7 vs ~26% in Vista, in the 4 GB RAM system used to test system statistics in a benchmark video above. So, Vista idles with around an extra 200 MB RAM usage than Windows 7.

 

I had 4 GB of RAM on my Vista OS, which is probably like having 8 - 12 GB of RAM today, and so it wasn't a problem for me. I was maxing out 8 GB of RAM in Windows 7 a whole lot more than I was maxing out 4 GB of RAM in Windows Vista (until I upgraded my 7 system to 16 GB), due to running more programs and different browsing habits by the time I had Win 7.

 

So long as RAM isn't being maxed, it isn't impacting OS performance. And like I said, one of the two main criticisms of Vista was relatively-high hardware requirements - for the time, and compared to what was already in people's XP systems. But Win 7 doesn't tangible reduce hardware requirements. It's not like 200 MB of RAM makes the average person need overall less RAM to handle their general PC usage.

I had 4GB, and the difference wasn't 200MB, but close to 1GB. Yes, Vista was idling close to 3GB. And no, your system doesn't start paging when RAM is at 100%, but much earlier, depending on what it's stored, what it thinks it will need, etc.

I never cared what the hardware requirements were, I never cared what the criticisms were. I wasn't paying attention to what others said, but experiencing it on my own. I switched OS, RAM usage dropped, boot times decreased noticeably, responsiveness increased noticeably. It's not what somebody told me, it's what happened.

Your mileage may vary.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Not to derail the thread: I guess what's really relevant to the topic from my experience is that, despite my unhappiness with Vista, I only made the move once I didn't need that computer for work any more  

[RagnarokDel]

On 19/08/2016 at 1:29 AM, DXMember said:

C2D isn't even that old yet, it's been just 10 years or something and is Win7/Vista age

I'm talking about machines that where bought in the XP age or pre-XP age and later updated to XP, like when all enterprises and government facilities started to massively digitalize in the late 90's

so penthium 2s?

[Trik'Stari]

Hard to justify "upgrading" your entire infrastructure to a less secure OS that you have less control over.

 

At least until some idiot in upper management asks "Why aren't we on Windows 10? It's new, so that should mean it's better" and then forces the IT department to implement it, despite all warnings and attempts to educate upper management

[treeroy]

this isn't news, it takes a long time for a company of any real size to upgrade all their systems to a new OS. If they are on Windows 7 and it works perfectly, they have little reason to invest in upgrading to Windows 10. It's very risky as bespoke applications and software may not have been updated to fully support Windows 10.

[SansVarnic]

On 8/19/2016 at 4:56 AM, AluminiumTech said:

Badly written software needs to be designed for separate versions of Windows. Well designed software runs on all versions with no problems.

That is not necessarily correct.

I am referring to software written for specific hardware and/or manufacturing practices. Remember we are talking about software written 20 years ago ... not today's standards.

For example there is a legitimate reason the US Navy does not want to move away Windows XP.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

On 2016-08-21 at 8:37 AM, Trik'Stari said:

Hard to justify "upgrading" your entire infrastructure to a less secure OS that you have less control over.

 

At least until some idiot in upper management asks "Why aren't we on Windows 10? It's new, so that should mean it's better" and then forces the IT department to implement it, despite all warnings and attempts to educate upper management

Congratulations, that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the issue at hand.

 

You have to remember that making such an upgrade will be applied building-wide and often times even business-wide, which involves quite a lengthy and time-consuming process. In order to get the operating system updated, the software used must also fully support it; zero errors, zero bugs, zero bytes wasted. Let me remind you, once again, that software support on the enterprise level is under incredibly strict standards.

 

Let me give you an example, so you hopefully have a single hope of a chance of understanding this. Just assume for a second that Linux is used as a standard on a business, any business. Do you actually believe that they are going to use the latest versions or iterations of whatever distribution (Arch, Debian, SUSE, RHEL, etc.) they are using? No way in living hell are they going to allow that. In fact, it is safe to assume that such a business will use a version with a kernel that is at least a decade old. Cross-distribution deployment is also a complete nightmare to deal with, so that is also out of the question.

[Trik'Stari]

2 hours ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Congratulations, that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the issue at hand.

 

You have to remember that making such an upgrade will be applied building-wide and often times even business-wide, which involves quite a lengthy and time-consuming process. In order to get the operating system updated, the software used must also fully support it; zero errors, zero bugs, zero bytes wasted. Let me remind you, once again, that software support on the enterprise level is under incredibly strict standards.

 

Let me give you an example, so you hopefully have a single hope of a chance of understanding this. Just assume for a second that Linux is used as a standard on a business, any business. Do you actually believe that they are going to use the latest versions or iterations of whatever distribution (Arch, Debian, SUSE, RHEL, etc.) they are using? No way in living hell are they going to allow that. In fact, it is safe to assume that such a business will use a version with a kernel that is at least a decade old. Cross-distribution deployment is also a complete nightmare to deal with, so that is also out of the question.

Our network admin is already complaining about the pressure he is getting from above, to "upgrade" us to Windows 10. And we're talking about a global IT company.

 

I do have a network security degree you know, I'm not completely ignorant. You are correct. Upgrading to a "new" OS is costly and expensive and quite often causes serious problems, both with software and hardware compatibility. This is about the only thing that people in upper level management understand, basically "It will cost us time and money".

 

My point, is that people in the IT world, the people who actually carry out the upgrades when they happen, have zero incentive to work towards this upgrade or support it, not just because it will cost time and money, but because it will make their daily work more of a pain in the ass, because it's an insecure OS from a company who is actively fighting any attempts to secure it from them. You can shout encryption all you want, but telemetry and forced automatic upgrades (one of which they recently imposed on even enterprise versions of the OS, meaning you cannot turn it off, can't be bothered to look back and see which it was) are both attack vectors, and sooner or later, someone will find a way to get in through that. Just look at all the shit the NSA has been pulling with VPN and TOR. Nothing is entirely secure, and the less control you have over something, the less secure it is.

 

Hell, imagine someone was able to slip something similar to Stuxnet into the Windows Update servers (which are supposedly the most secure servers on the internet, because they're completely fucking disorganized on purpose, creating an absolute labyrinth that you'd have to get through to find a server with any real value). But still, nothing is 100% secure, and someone will ALWAYS find a way in. That's why the cybersecurity industry exists.

 

Something you cannot lockdown, and cannot inspect, is an attack vector. There's a VERY good reason that the global banking infrastructure is run mostly on IBM z/OS mainframes, and not Windows or Linux.

[laminutederire]

On Friday, August 19, 2016 at 0:28 PM, ThinkWithPortals said:

Not sure about you, but my school PCs ran Windows 7 but had a solution whereby the IT administrator could force-security-update all the PCs in the school, a la Windows 10. Can't remember the software name, will rack my brain for a few minutes...

Does that software still run well with laptops disseminated in different networks?

Forced updates are annoying for us tech guys, because we update what we want when we want to, since we understand what's in it. Normal people don't upgrade because it would take time or whatever. It's more about lazyness which can in the end cause troubles for the end users, since malware exploiting patched vulnerabilities can still do their things and so on.

W10 Home is good for consumers in that sense. It does what people won't do themselves because they don't understand it.

If someone wants to say anything about windows 10, it should be about the replication of some of these in  the pro/education/enterprise versions. I'll probably switch from pro to an enterprise version in September because of that. Those versions are nonetheless more suited for businesses.