U.S. Army switching over to Windows Vista

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: US Army

The United States Army has announced the decision to upgrade hundreds of thousands of PC desktops from Windows XP to Windows Vista by 2010. This undoubtedly will make Microsoft happy, as sales of Vista were presumed to be never as high as they had hoped.

The U.S Army will also be upgrading all copies of Windows Office 2003 to Office 2007. Instead of waiting for Office 2010, it looks like the Army is choosing to go with Office 2007 out of security concerns.



Read more: http://www.neoseeker.com/news/10809-u-s-army-switching-over-to-windows-vista-/

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MS bailout?

[Wilms]

1. Maybe NOW the wars will end. n/t

[OhioChick]

4. ............

:rofl:

[n2doc]

59. +1

:rofl: :toast:

[readmoreoften]

61. +1-- Here's to hopin'!!! /nt

[Posteritatis]

67. "God dammit, my rifle bluescreened again.." (nt)

[UndertheOcean]

2. Why not just wait for windows 7 ?

what a waste of money.


If you are not updating hardware , getting rid of XP makes no sense

[merwin]

12. They would have to be upgrading hardware.

System requirements and all... I am all for vista on modern hardware where it runs great, but if they are switching in 2010 why not wait for Windows 7? It would be a much easier transition, plus they would get more out of the hardware because of the lower (realistic) system requirements.

Windows 7 will run fine on most XP hardware while Vista won't.

[Occulus]

22. They should just spring for it

7 is a lot better than Vi$ta. In fact, it's so good, I just might buy a copy.

I'm typing this under the Window$ 7 7100 RC build. I have had only one single major issue with it, involving a game, and the issue is actually a Vi$ta bug.

Seriously, the Window$ 7 beta I'm using runs better than Vi$ta ever did.

[AlphaCentauri]

25. Have you try win 7 XP mode for your game?

[Occulus]

44. LOL. Oh, my, yes. The game is Bioshock.

Here's what happens:

Install the game, play, no sound.

GOOGLE!

Switch to XP SP2 compatibility mode. Sound!

End game. Restart. Black screen! No menu!

Switch to Vi$ta compatibility mode. Sound!

End game. Restart. Black screen! No menu!

Switch back to XP SP2 compatibility mode. No sound!

And then it's permanent and I have to uninstall and reinstall, at which point the cycle begins again.

It's a :grr:, but it's the only issue I've had yet. And I have to say, when it runs correctly, Bioshock runs like a dream.

[DS1]

47. Bioshock is notoriously shit

[Occulus]

48. True, at least in Vi$ta.

I've already played it through once, so it doesn't bother me all that much. Still, I would have liked to play it at 60 fps, which is what Fraps was saying I was getting... when it was working right.

But yeah, my Googling showed me that Bioshock and Vi$ta just do not like each other all that much.

I wonder how my PSX emulators will run in Win7....

[DS1]

49. I've been on Win 7 RC and it's been fantastic

Not being on Vista for a year, even though essentially forcing myself to buy the upgrade when it comes out, is well worth it.

[Occulus]

50. You may want to have another partition with XP handy.

From what I gather, there's likely to be a gap between the time that Win7 RC 7100 build deactivates, and when the OS is actually released. Micro$oft is saying "in time for Christmas" for Win7, but it deactivates in August, I think, with bi-hourly powerdowns built into the RC 7100 build starting in July.

[DS1]

51. Beta expires in August, RC expires in June 2010

[Occulus]

53. Okay, mine says "Evaluation copy 7100 Build" in the corner

Do I need to download the RC, or can I upgrade to the RC?

(I thought the 7100 build *was* the release candidate....)

[DS1]

54. Yes, that should be RC(1)

Mine says that, and it's definitely the beta copy

[Occulus]

70. Cool. Just nabbed the RC build.

I'm getting both the 32- and 64-bit versions, as my roommate wants it too.

Do you happen to know what, if any, differences there are in the RC build vs. the 7100 beta?

[madrchsod]

30. my son rebuilt his system just to run 7 beta....

looks like he`ll be rebuilding a new system for me...

[Occulus]

45. It starts *way* faster than XP.

Now, to be absolutely fair, I do have a quad core AMD and a dual video card (SLI) rig. But the performance difference is just vast. Here's an example.

One of the games I have is called "The Last Remnant". It's by Square|Enix, famous for their "Final Fantasy" games. However, unlike the FF series, "Remnant" is rated "M" (and rightly so).

"The Last Remnant", however, is just one chocobo short of a Final Fantasy, but I digress.

"Remnant" uses the Unreal Engine 3, a wickedly moddable game engine from Epic Games. There are several new games using this engine: "Mirror's Edge", "Bioshock", "Unreal Tounament 3", and of course "The Last Remnant". This engine has the potential to push the PC as far as it will go.

Anyway. When I play "Remnant" in XP, the highest consistent framerate I get is about 20-25 frames per second, and it wildly fluctuates. Battle screens are nearly unplayable because of this, and the framerate in populated areas such as towns is... regrettable.

HOWEVER, in Window$ 7, "Remnant" cheerfully runs at upward of fifty frames per second consistently. On the same hardware, no less, as I have a dual-boot setup. It's just... ridiculous.

Crysis is actually enjoyably playable, and most people need a quad-core quad SLI rig from four years in the future to play it!

The difference is, honestly, quite a shock. Everything runs a whole hell of a lot better.

[madrchsod]

69. yup...he`s a game player

and that`s why he likes 7 so much.he runs two monitors one for games and the other for work. he started beta testing with microsoft when nt was introduced.

[Occulus]

72. I swear. Even 360 ports run better than on a 360.

It's amazing.

Ah! I just had my second Windows 7 software issue, with Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. I get "error 0x8004070: Generic error" when trying to install. As of now, there are no known solutions that work for me.

Soooo, if I want to play that game, I'll have to have an XP partition anyway. That's okay though- I'm more than used to having multiple OSes on the drive at this point.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

83. I would guess it's a better DirectX library.

Or whatever M$ calls it these days.

It's also possible that if you could keep XP and upgrade DirectX, you'd get the same benefits. It's also possible that M$ artificially restricts this.

[shireen]

3. too bad ... they should get Macs. nt

[struggle4progress]

71. It's the Army. If they get Macs, they'll use them to run 32 bit Vista under Bootcamp

[jpak]

5. Vista sucks

it truly does

Our enemies will use Macs to defeat us on the cyber battlefield...

[InfiniteThoughts]

10. yes ...

i don't hate MS like some people do but Vista sucks big time. After throwing a 2 GB RAM, my laptop has response behaviour worse than the time when i used to run Win 95...

[merwin]

13. Vista is fine if you have recent hardware... otherwise don't bother...

Vista is better than XP for network management. Win7 beats them both in every area hands down.

[Sentath]

17. Even with modern hardware

it is prone to waking up disoriented and refusing to recognize its network connections.

[ProudDad]

88. Sorry, you're wrong

It still sucks on "newer hardware"...

I have an HP laptop that on paper is the most powerful of my 6 computers but it runs like a slug, locks up and loses the DVD drive on a periodic basis.

It sucks Big Time!

I'm glad the Army's "downgrading" their desktops to Vista though -- END OF THE FUCKING WAR MACHINE!!!! YEAH!!!!

[NoSheep]

90. Ooooh....that sounds about right!

[salguine]

6. If this is true, it's not because Vista will do the job better...it'll be because

some Microsoft lobbyists threw a shitload of money at a few key senators.

[sofa king]

63. Normally, I'd buy this explanation.

However, I suspect that the real issue is about the notoriously long maturity rate for MS operating systems. The first year after release, they're always totally fucked up, with broken (and removed) features and massive security flaws. Thereafter, more features are dropped, nerfed, or very occasionally fixed. Finally, by about Service Pack 2 (except in the case of Vista, which released a service pack early simply to defy the rule of thumb), or three years down the road, the OS is as stable and secure as it's going to get.

Thus, somewhere in the next year, Vista should be worth a damn. Despite the cheerleading above, the next Windows will have to undergo its own three-or-more year security maturation, making it a viable candidate somewhere in 2014.

[ChromeFoundry]

7. if they ran Linux

they would not need to upgrade their hardware...
mission critical workstations wouldn't crash as often...

what a waste of money.

[Jakes Progress]

11. Yep.

I use Macs, but using Linux for the services makes more sense than throwing our tax cash at MS.

[Occulus]

23. Despite my post above, that's totally true.

AND they would have the added bonus of direct access to every last scrap of source code- and a huuuge user base full of coders.

I mean, really.

[Xithras]

52. And they would need to spend tens of billions to rewrite existing applications.

The DoD isn't your typical corporation running off the shelf apps and maybe one or two custom ones. Their entire technological infrastructure is contracted out to consultants like Lockheed and 90% of the software they use is custom written specifically for them. I've been told several times that the Defense Department has one of the most insanely complicated MS Visual Basic application codebases on the planet.

If the DoD were to go with Linux, or Mac, or anything else, they'd need to rewrite much of their software from scratch. Trust me, companies like Lockheed would LOVE for the DoD to announce a switch to Linux or Mac, because they'd make insane amounts of money on that transition.

Upgrading from XP to Vista is cheaper for the DoD simply because it means they get to maintain their existing application codebase.

[ChromeFoundry]

55. 90% of that 90% would run fine under WINE...

http://www.winehq.org/

everything running under the .Net framework would easily port to MONO.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

Many application that run fin under XP will fail a miserable death under Vista. If you are going to have to rework the code to execute under the Vista platform, why not go the extra 20 feet and write it to an architecture that does not require client access licensing as well as server licenses.

To actually change the way security functions and to disable unnecessary functionality that hogs resources and exposes security risks.. to have access to the code that executes at kernel level... hummm, I think it is worth the switch and the initial up-front costs.

[AndyTiedye]

66. Gives New Meaning to the Phrase "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH"

[ProudDad]

100. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

We want the war machine to fail!

No more war!

[IndianaGreen]

8. Why don't they wait for Windows 7?

VISTA sucks big time.

[bitchkitty]

9. Figures.

Why use anything else, when you can give Microsoft the contract?

I hate bureaucracy.

[MilesColtrane]

14. Why not just wave a big flag out of the Pentagon that says, "Attack Us Now"?

Gives a new meaning to the old Blue Screen of Death.

[izquierdista]

37. Blue screen?

Mine just goes black and powers off everyday about this tim....damn!

[The Wizard]

15. Just another example of

resources pissed down the rat hole by the Pentagon. Military spending could be cut in half and our security would not be compromised.
With all we spend on the military, 19 guys with box cutters brought this country to its knees and a criminal cartel running the government used defense spending to loot the treasury.
No one squanders resources like the military. They use more fuel than the rest of us combined.
Now they're buying defective operating systems for top dollar no doubt. In two years they'll buy Windows 7 or Macs.

[tucsonlib]

16. I'm Sorry, Dave. I'm Afraid I Can't Do That.

:nuke:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

20. omg - recommend for the Duzzies

:rofl:

[smalll]

18. Interesting how even the Pentagon doesn't consider Macs as an option --

too EXPENSIVE -- even for the tens-of-thousands-per-toilet-seat crowd!

[rpannier]

19. The Army wants to suffer like everyone else I guess

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

21. FInally, the military finds the weapons of mass destruction

pwned.

[Blue_Tires]

24. some 14-year-old punk kid in Indonesia is gonna control our launch codes...

[Posteritatis]

68. I'd assume stuff like those are still on nice hulking ancient indestructible 70s-era stuff (nt)

[moggie]

26. Could this retard commercial takeup of Windows 7?

Companies thinking "what does the army know that we don't?"

[Vidar]

27. Military intelligence is an oxymoron.

[davidinalameda]

28. how fucking stupid can they get

this just boggles the mind

[madrchsod]

29. epic failure...7 is the new xp...

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

31. We're doomed.

:shrug:

[Divine Discontent]

32. HELLO - MAKE THIS NOT HAPPEN CONGRESS! This VISTA is outdated the moment Windows 7 comes out later

this year.

So, they're buying a bug ridden OS, WHY??? From all reports Windows 7 looks and is working good. Not sure why they don't just go MAC, but whatever...

[Occulus]

46. Those reports are correct. I HATE to push a Micro$oft OS, but in this case, it's true.

Window$ 7 is to Window$ Vi$ta as Window$ XP was to Window$ ME.

In other words... vastly better.

[Toucano]

33. Ubuntu is FREE!

Free as in free beer.

The Pentagon is wasting resources, yet again.

[Realityhack]

75. Not quite.

It still has ownership costs. Sometimes linux on the desktop works out financially and sometimes it doesn't.

[DFW]

34. It's an Islamofascist plot!

Give the U.S. Military a system known for its bugs and crashes.

The our motto will be "No, we can't"

[LeftyMom]

35. Iraq War (Not Responding)

[panzerfaust]

36. Just in time to watch the world embrace Windows-7

God I LOVE the Army

[LeftHander]

38. Figures...only military still taking kick backs from Microsoft....

Even the most greedy IT directors won't risk putting Vista on the desktop...

Vista is a career limiting move and not worth the under the table payouts...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

39. Whole new meaning to BSOD. nt

[CreekDog]

40. Anything to slow the withdrawal from Iraq.

:wtf:

[Canuckistanian]

41. No! Our job is to make the OTHER bastards use Vista

What a SNAFU.

[nichomachus]

62. That's a great idea

We'll just send over bombers to drop copies of Vista and then wait for the countries to implode while they wait for their Service Pack 5.4.3.2.2 to load.

[bemildred]

42. Well, that ought to just about finish then off as an effective fighting force.

"Follow me men! Just a minute Sarge, I'm in the middle of a reboot."

[Akoto]

43. "An unidentified program wants to access your military: dickcheney.exe"

If only we'd been able to hit Cancel years ago. Paranoid security system, where were you then? :(

[no limit]

56. I bet 99% of the people here bitching about Vista have no clue as to what they are talking about

Vista is a perfectly secure and stable OS and has many nice new features XP lacks. Why wouldn't the military upgrade to Vista by 2010 when the support phase for XP will run out by then? Makes perfect sense.

[lumberjack_jeff]

58. I bet 99% of the people here bitching about Vista use... err suffer, Vista. n/t

[Occulus]

60. Vi$ta is a POS operating system that was so bad Microsoft offered downgrades

to their business customers.

Vi$ta was equally bad for gamers. There were- and are- huge issues.

Not to mention Vi$ta's unnecessarily paranoid security "features".

Fortunately, all, or nearly all, of Vi$ta's myriad issues seem to have been fixed in Window$ 7, which is what I'm running right now. I get better performance from my hardware in 7 than I did in either Vi$ta (for the month I used it) or XP.

"Vista is a perfectly secure and stable OS"

:rofl:

[bullwinkle428]

64. Welcome to our humble little board, Mr. Gates!

[CatholicEdHead]

65. True, while Vista can be more secure, has more Group Policy options

but on my T5450 Core 2 Chip, and 2GB RAM it runs as fast as XP did on my old PIII 384MB RAM laptop. It is better than ME of course, but if they are going to wait until 2010, Windows 7 SP1 should be out which will be the OS to jump too from XP SP2 or SP3. My only beef is my WiFi 802.11g driver which periodically and randomly stops which forces me to reboot.

[Realityhack]

74. You do realize there was a very good reason...

that Vista sales sucked and MS had to extend XP sales repeatedly right? We aren't talking just consumers, most businesses including large corporations have steered clear of Vista. They are now looking at direct upgrades to windows 7.

I am not saying that the military should not upgrade but I think you are underestimating the problems with vista. Furthermore you failed to note that it is NOW fairly stable. Upon release it behaved like an early beta.

[no limit]

76. I do not dispute there were problems at release

but that was years ago. Vista is now a perfectly stable OS. With all the new group policy features as well as the enchanced security it makes perfect sense for them to upgrade to it.

I still think that the reason Vista sales have been slow is because of this misconception that it is unstable. I don't doubt that a large part of that is Microsoft's screw ups when it was released.

[Realityhack]

80. Another large factor is that IT departments are looking at going strait to 7.

Vista is almost as close to end of life as XP.

And the corporate IT departments know exactly what Vista works like currently and they do a great deal of analysis before recommending for or against upgrading.

And the enhanced security is not all it is advertised to be. Vista is no Linux.

Again, the military may have a good reason to upgrade but waiting for windows 7 may also be a very viable option. This is not a 'no brainier'.

[no limit]

84. Vista is no linux? The security of linux depends on how you configure it

Vista can be configured in the exact same way. Just because Vista comes out of the box easy to use (and unsecure) doesn't mean you can't configure it using the least privilege principle (what keeps linux secure).

[Realityhack]

86. Unfortunately there ARE underlying architecture differences.

Thus your post is incorrect.

[no limit]

95. Tell me what security features linux has that windows lacks

instead of simply saying I'm incorrect post some specifics.

[B3Nut]

81. I run 3 Vista machines

a desktop at home running Ultimate, a Home Premium laptop, and my main work desktop running Business, with an RDP session to my old XP workstation on a second monitor. All are on SP1, and have been impressively stable. I had to blow out my work desktop recently due to a group-ploicy software deployment test gone awry (I guinea pig myself before throwing anything into production...even we admins make ID10T errors!) but other than that I really can't complain much...then again I don't go loading all manner of random crap like the average consumer does, I keep a clean system. (also, I build my own desktops.)

That said, the Army would have been better off to wait for Windows 7, since it is even more solid. My home-studio PC for music, however, remains an XP machine.

[no limit]

85. If you haven't screwed up a workstation with bad group policy settings...

...you probably haven't been a system admin very long :). It happens to the best of us.

But I just don't see all the hype about Windows 7. I'll admit, I haven't spent too much time on it but it seems to be a Vista mod, nothing more.

[ProudDad]

93. No, it's because even on a "powerful" machine

Vista runs like a fucking slug.

It's shit.

[ProudDad]

91. I know WTF I'm talking about

I've been a computer programmer/consultant since the days of Tube computers.

I've been the (long suffering) user of m$ software since before they drove Gary Killdall out of the business.

Each succeeding operating system has been harder to administer, gobbled up proportionally MORE resources just to exist and basically has been SHITTIER than the last.

Vista is the nadir of that curve.

From my 42+ years of professional experience on every kind of computer under every kind of operating system (including some I wrote parts of) VISTA IS SHIT!

I'm glad the Army's gonna use it -- ought to considerably cut their ability to murder innocents once they're wasting their time on this piece of shit operating system.

Now if we can get the Navy and Air Force to use it too -- Kaboom -- end of War Machine...

[no limit]

96. As computers get more powerful operating systems will use more resources

it's common sense.

Let me guess, since you've been around for so long you were making the same complaints against windows XP when that came out? How about when windows 98 came out?

[ProudDad]

99. As computer hardware gets more powerful

the computers should WORK FASTER!

That was the case with every computer hardware advance in my experience from 1964 until ... until Windoze...

With windoze we're treated to a new phenomenon...As the hardware gets faster and more powerful, the OS makes the computer more SLUGGISH.

That's why I hate Vista -- it's the worst of the bunch -- ON HARDWARE "DESIGNED FOR VISTA"!

And you're wrong about MY operating system experience. I DID NOT USE windoze 95 or 98 for mission critical situations in my own production environment.

I only experienced it as an impediment at my client's offices.

I used NT and then Win2000 (NT with a prettier GUI)...

And yes, windoze XP was retrograde compared to win2K but I was forced by professional requirements and the lack of availability of Win2k on new machines to grudgingly accept it.

Vista, as I've said, is the whale turds on the bottom of the sea version of windoze.

In general, M$ has made mediocrity the standard ... for that alone they should never be forgiven.

[no limit]

103. You are talking about a slight performance decrease compared to windows xp

and the features you gain as a result are worth that performance decrease. From the benchmarks I've looked at this performance decrease is usually around 2% never really going above 5%. This can be very easily compensated for using slightly more powerful hardware. "HARDWARE "DESIGNED FOR VISTA" is a marketing term that has no real world implications. If your average consumer that knows nothing about computers has Vista and is out looking for hardware he will go with the box that says "Vista Compatible" over one that doesn't; hell he'll probably even pay more for it.

Windows 2000 was a great OS, but XP was even better.

[ProudDad]

104. Only if you're talking in terms of the fringe elements

Sure, XP allows connectivity with more devices because M$ made sure that drivers weren't written for Win2K...

XP does not utilize computer resources MORE EFFICIENTLY than Win2K and Win2K doesn't waste as many resources on frills like the GUI that do not really contribute...

XP runs slower than Win2K...

Vista runs VASTLY slower than XP...

That's progress?



"From the benchmarks I've looked at this performance decrease is usually around 2% never really going above 5%."

Uh, you're admitting that Vista is more sluggish on more powerful hardware than XP is on older hardware???

"Benchmarks" are like average fuel economy. The equipment can be tailored to give good benchmarks without being a better experience in the real world.

IN MY REAL WORLD, where I switch between a 3+ year old machine running XP (that I've laboriously "tuned" to run as efficiently as possible) and the Vista machine (which I have TRIED to "tune" to run as efficiently as possible)...

VISTA IS SHIT!

(and I avoid that machine like the plague for mission critical processing)..

[NoSheep]

92. because it is the 2nd time I've saved for years for a new computer and

gotten an OS that I am totally unused to. (Windows ME and Vista) I have a very stressful, detail oriented job that
I've used XP with for 7 yrs now. I can hardly find my Docs and Favorites on my new Dell using Vista. We aren't ALL the same. Give people credit.

[no limit]

97. I agree with you on having to get used to the interface

but it really isn't all that different once you get used to it. My argument is against the people saying it is unstable or not secure.

[ProudDad]

101. It's unstable and "too secure"

and the m$ "software engineers" have gone above and beyond in hiding the switches, levers and controls for the OS.

My Vista machine is truly nasty about communicating with the other 5 machines ON MY OWN NETWORK.

Why the fuck should I have to spend a couple hundred hours to completely relearn the thousands of ins and outs with every new release of their cock-a-mamie operating systems?

Last time I took a trip on the airlines with my vista laptop it took over 20 minutes to boot up, connect to the airport network and then forced another trip into regedit and an uninstall and reinstall the DVD burner (that it lost track of again!!!)...

Piece of SHIT!

[NoSheep]

102. I see. Point taken.

[lumberjack_jeff]

57. We're fooked. n/t

[damntexdem]

73. Well, there goes the military.

If Poland invades, we'll have no defense! Or what if Norway comes after us?

[Divine Discontent]

77. yep, we'll be bogged down by slow systems and glitches of all things! how embarrassing...

I hate my Vista laptop. will change when I can afford it. The US Govt should know that Vista is on it's last shelf life, so this sure smacks of quid pro quo.

[KamaAina]

78. Vista and the Army: A match made in Hell

"Hurry up and wait!" :eyes:

[timtom]

79. Masterful informed managerial decision!

I could expect no other.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

82. I am reminded of an old Beetle Bailey cartoon. Anyone remembers this?

He approaches Sarge with a hammer he bought at a hardware store, saying, "Look! This hammer cost x, and is identical to those the Army buys for 10x!"

Sarge, with the straightest face Mort Walker can draw, looks at the two hammers and says, "They're not identical. See, let me drive a nail with the Army hammer." (swiftly drives a nail into a board with one strong blow) "Now look at this inferior-quality hammer." (taps onto another nail very weakly)

Beetle Bailey is left looking dumbly at the hammers, while Sarge goes away thinking, "Preserving the Army's reputation is a hard job!"

[ProudDad]

87. Yipeeeeeeee!

The end of the War Machine!!!!

WooHoo :woohoo:

[NoSheep]

89. Learning curve SUCKS. Vista SUCKS.

[DainBramaged]

94. Windows Vista FUBAR version

I wonder how much the Army is paying for this golden hammer?

[AB_Positive]

98. Countdown to US nukes glitching and hitting US soil...

In five... four... three...