Tales from the Crypto

I guess that would be a valid argument for something like XP SP3, but SP1 for Vista WILL be a huge improvement. How many laptops still have problems with power management in Vista? A lot. How many graphics cards are still having driver issues? And most importantly - are you really going to deploy Vista and then go around applying hot fixes to machines?! I'd much rather wait for a fully supported solution to resolving horrendous file transfer speeds both on and off the network along with all the other reliability issues I've encountered so far. When SP1 arrives I'll reevalate, but Vista ain't ready yet.

Alun, it's fair enough to raise the question for debate, but it's not appropriate to suggest that it's wrong to wait for an SP for an RTM product. Especially when you've got a lot of business managers willing to fry you alive for loss of productivity et al. In these situations you have to be more cautious as to what you deploy, and when you deploy it.

Often the reason corporates decide to wait for an SP release for an RTM product is because of all the rough edges that get "smoothed" off by the SP. And, reliability and usability usually increases after an SP is appled. As you know SP's are not traditionally a mechanism for delivering new functionality, but by definition are provided to fix fundamental as well as peripheral issues with an OS, or product. This then suggests that these changes are beneficial and sometimes worth waiting for. In Vistas case, and from personal experience of using the product (which i refuse to use as my main station) there are "many" rough edges and only an SP (2008) will fix them.

I for one would not drop Vista in to the workplace until it's performance issues are resolved. Sounds a bit fuzzy, sure it is. I know this is a generalisation and not pointing at XYZ issue, but it's well documented on the web that Vista needs to be honed a bit more. Who on earth could justify Vistas current performance on high end desktop equipment, which is turned in to 4-5 year old kit the moment Vista is installed! I have a laptop that runs blisteringly fast on XP, battery performance is great. I go ahead and install Vista and I get 30minutes battery life, and the OS crawls along when doing the most mundane things. Obviously this brand new (not hardware crippled) laptop was returned to XP, and productivity went back to normal.

No one in their right mind would sack you for not deploying an RTM product, unless it was business critical. A desktop migration is often not business critical but a planned, road-mapped approach to managing the desktop estate. And, introducing new functionality as well as sometimes generating a massive re-training campaign that can cost companies millions in training resources and loss of productivity while the users get use to doing the same thing a different way.

All food for thought, i enjoyed reading you're article, and hope my comment is not too abrasive, keep up the good work!

Let me point you at three things:

First is Google with a search string of "Vista problem", the second is "XP problem" and the third is a link to a well known, and unfixed issue with Vista.

www.google.co.uk/search

www.google.co.uk/search

Note that Vista+Problem = 122,000 results, and it's only been out a few months! whereas XP+Problem (which has been out quite a few years) has 112,000 results (tap this in yourself, see what figures come out). That is a sure indication that there is a lot of "chatter" surrounding "issues" with the product. Now go visit Technet forums, see a lot of "it's not working" chatter there too? If most or any of these problems impacted you're users would you brush them off and tell them to quite moaning and enjoy this wonderful RTM OS? Or would you think "oh bugger"? Do you think the business managers would be understanding? How much damage would you have done to the IT Departments credibility, especially when SP1 arrives and the problems disappear? Would that reinforce you're decision, or make it look like a sick joke on the business?

Now I really enjoy working with Microsoft products, but i'm a realist, i know they get things right AND they get things very wrong ... but releasing RTM products in to the business is too close to a gamble for an old-timer like me, it's less of a gamble once an SP is released.

Take a look at the gaming industry, RTM = buggy, then a patch comes out, in fact a long list of patches come out and the product is usually only fully usable after 3-6-12 months. This is a model driven by marketing, get it released on such a date and we don't care how many bugs are in there, fix them after we've shipped. I'm seeing that same behaviour manifesting in the non-gaming world.

Now, that 3rd and final link ... this is very interesting, and would cause me to shiver if the business started to suffer from it, especially if I was responsible for deploying the product early, and ignored those that said "hold on there tex, let's wait":

www.theregister.co.uk/.../vistas_long_goodbye_continues

Now, come up with a suitable justification as to why the "business" should continue to wade it's way through that unfixed problem, especialy if it starts manifesting on VIP machines. I think you'd be looking at jobsites and muttering "no one ever got sacked for buying IBM", or something similiar ;-)

Now, to be fair Vista is an OS, we all went through the same kind of pain when Windows 95 rolled out, when XP rolled out it was harsh. OS's are high visbility because it sits on every single users machine, and users have to interact with it every time they click the mouse or touch the keyboard. Whereas, a different RTM product, such as a back-office product would get less usage and less of a strain on the business if it was a bit buggy. Thus, i'd consider my options differently depending on high-vis and medium to low-vis.

I hope this doesn't again reinforce you're point somehow? As i'm trying to point out that you can cut this a million different ways but essentially it comes down to risk takers and non-risk takers. I fall in to the latter category, IT serves the business, business does not serve IT.

This has spurned me on to write a detailed article, of my experiences over the years with OS and product deployments, culminating in to the single choice "should I deploy" or "should I wait". I'll be sure to come back here and drop a comment to the article.

That's not correct, I was contrasting two Microsoft OS's (in a loose way, certainly not scientific and doesn't hold much water agreed), and not their competitors.

To reference Apple and Linux google searches just sounded like a knee-jerk reaction to the assumption that I was trolling\flaming Microsoft here. That's not my thing.

I was not trying to show that Microsoft runs out flakey OS's, instead the reference was to highlight that there is a "lot of negative chatter" over Vista, from tried and tested Microsoft customers. That reinforces my position not to deploy RTM right now, even though a few KB's have been released. Instead, let those companies that have a "special agreement with Microsoft" eat dogfood, and produce KB's. The mere thought of deploying an epic peice of software such as Vista, and experiencing new, interesting and very unknown issues makes me steer clear until it's bedded in. Besides, Microsoft has enough customers deploying RTM, hence why we are getting KB's released which 90% (again not a scientific percentage, just a working figure!) of the time are generated via feedback from customers actually suffering\experiencing the problems.

You need to be more objective, and put Microsoft to the side for a minute. Like I said previously, the Business is all important. IT is the businesses slave, and not it's master. If anything, qoute from this paragraph and reason this in to you're assertions. And don't feel that I am roughing you up, just being both devils advocate, and passing on my ten cents worth of reasoning.

It's an interesting subject, I'd love to hear what others think. I'm sure there are many that can contribute their thoughts for and against, and perhaps even middle of the road!

Cheers Alun, keep up with the thought provoking blog entries!

Thanks to Rob, I am now confident in the decision I took earlier this year: No migration to Windows Vista or purchasing of PCs with Vista (Business / Enterprise) until SP1 comes out on the market.  I got indications from corporate IT management (in other organisations) and IT Pros concerning Windows Vista...  Businesses don't have time to waste on software that is not tuned.  At minimum, Vista should have "started" where XP left off.