Windows XP, Vista … and the Next Big Thing

Did you know that the next version of Windows, after Vista, will be the seventh in the Windows stable‡? Not that it’s a terribly significant factoid, but it may explain the reason that the next version is codenamed simply “Windows 7″, as opposed to the fancier code names of the past such as Snowball, Daytona, Longhorn, etc. Something else you may not know is that a public beta-version of Windows 7 is slated for release as near as January 2009.

“The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity. Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore Windows 7 just makes sense.”

Mike Nesh, Microsoft VP of Windows Product Management

Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 7 at their Professional Developer Conference in October 2008, and although they have not yet committed to a date for release to market, insider speculation… has it at late 2009 to January 2010. Website InternetNews.com claims June 3, 2009 is the release date internally planned at Microsoft, but it’s not clear whether this date refers to the “Release Candidate”, “Release to Manufacturing”, or public availability — individual events which could be fairly widely spaced in time.

But whatever the fine detail, we could be looking at a successor to Windows Vista in as little as 9-12 months time.

So is it surprising that even now, some 22 months after the general release of Windows Vista, I’m still getting questions from Windows XP users regarding the advisability or otherwise of upgrading to Vista?

For a number of reasons I don’t make blanket recommendations when asked this question (there’s a degree of “personal situation” involved), but I do think it might help to offer a few thoughts for your consideration.

There’s no question that Vista is more secure than its predecessors, but you still won’t find many professionals deeming it a secure operating system. There’s still a lot of work to be done from a security perspective, as evidenced by the stream of patches and updates that issue from Microsoft every month.

Probably the most disappointing thing about Vista was how – after all the time, money, effort and testing that went into it pre-release – in many ways it looked and performed like a beta release when it finally hit the shelves.

It’s no secret that corporate America (and hence corporate-everywhere-else as well) has really been dragging its collective heels upgrading to Vista. All over the Web you can find analysts and commentators discussing the slow uptake of Windows Vista by the corporate sector.

On the home front it’s a different story, and that’s not at all surprising. Let’s face it, the average home PC user doesn’t know one operating system from another. I don’t mean to belittle anyone with that statement, but it’s just a fact. In the mind of the tyro “latest” equates to “greatest”, and who wants last year’s model?

Home users, and to a certain extent smaller businesses, are buying whatever is put in front of them by their retailer, and what the retailers are offering is dictated by the manufacturers.

Many manufacturers stopped providing XP machines not long after the release of Vista, but quite a few of them were forced to back-pedal in the face of buyer resistance and repeated requests for new machines loaded with Windows XP.

The main problem complicating the decision of upgraders and new buyers has been Microsoft’s decision to stop sales of Windows XP by June 30, 2008. Although copies of Windows XP are still available from retailers and OEMs long after that date, there is the added complication of maintenance. Microsoft will no longer issue patches and updates that aren’t security-related after April 14, 2009.

And then there’s the matter of product activation. There is some speculation as to whether or not Microsoft will prevent product activation after one of those dates. While it is possible that product activation for Windows XP will be terminated at some point, I think it unlikely that’s a move Microsoft would make in the foreseeable future. If such a move were on the cards the earliest likely date would be April 8, 2014 — the so-called end-of-support term, at which point all support contracts and agreements expire.

Many professionals and experienced users are still questioning why they should be forced away from the Windows XP with which they are now comfortable, know quite well, and which does everything they require of it. For many, Vista is a confusing and high-priced range of different versions that don’t seem to offer anything they need, and that introduces compatibility problems they never had to deal with under XP.

Even technology-oriented organizations that you would expect to be heavily biased towards the cutting edge are expressing reservations. Back in April 2008 the tech Web site InfoWorld started a “Save XP” campaign.

http://weblog.infoworld.com/save-xp/archives/2008/01/save_windows_xp.html

The best advice I can give to anyone intending to purchase a new computer in the near future is to do your research. If at all possible, decide what software applications you need to run and what additional hardware you wish to support. Then spend some time on appropriately filtered searches to see what’s being said by people with similar requirements to yours. Also, locate articles discussing the Windows XP vs Vista situation. The many comments at the InfoWorld site (see URL above) may give you some ideas,  and here is another example from the CIO Web site:

http://www.cio.com/article/176150/Why_Save_XP_Infoworld_Readers_Speak_Out

So where do I stand personally on the issue? Well, I’ll just say that I’m a signatory to the InfoWorld campaign.

Having countered Vista’s security advantage by securing our XP installations according to the practices laid out in my books “Seven Steps to a Clean PC“ and “The Hacker’s Nightmare“,  we continue to fail to find any compelling reason to switch to Windows Vista for our typical small office situation.

But you really have to make your own decision based on your hardware and software needs and the results of your own research.