As expected, our entry last week about Windows XP slowly dying brought XP fans out with claims that the operating system is very much alive and well. (And it must be, considering your editor is using it right now.) Frank writes:
Hey, I'm running XP until I can't. Vista and Windows 7 both have network issues connecting to multiple domains. Until someone can tell me how to:
1) Login to one domain
2) Connect to file shares in another domain
3) Did I forget to mention that the domains cannot directly trust each other or become part of the same tree, directory, etc.? (Whatever the new buzz word is for Active Directory, NDS, etc...)
I haven't played with the Windows XP compatibility in Windows 7 yet, but it would not be enough to allow all applications to see the drive shares. Ah, the fun of having someone else in charge of a large part of my work space and the ability, or rather lack thereof, to do something about it.
I hate the control changes when browsing files. I used to be able to use backspace (very fast and quick 'look Ma, no mouse needed!' in Windows XP) to change up directory levels. In Windows 7, it gets into a round-robin and doesn't come out! And don't get me started about that horrid ribbon in Office 2007 and 2010. Yuck to the core! Dang, Microsoft, just pull the rug right out from under me and give me nowhere to land. I do like some of the speed differences in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 to get to a desktop. But that's about it.
Maybe Linux desktops will be a thing of the future.
Frank, we know that you meant that last line as a joke... (Seriously, he originally put a smiley on the end of it.) As great as Windows 7 is, it can be, as the English say, too clever by half. Many of the new capabilities are great, but the OS also breaks processes and shortcuts that are familiar from XP -- and that did and do still work just fine. It's hard to undo nearly a decade of OS habits.
As for Mike, he'd love to move a client to Windows 7, but it's not going to happen:
I would love to move my biggest client to Windows 7, but here's the catch: My client is running SBS 2003 and with the economy, especially in California getting ready for another down-turn, we will continue with SBS 2003. It is working just fine; we have had no issues and no security threats (like everyone else, so far). But the biggest thing is that Windows 7 does not function with SBS 2003 \\servername\client\setup.exe, which must be run when connecting a machine to the SBS 2003 domain so that it provides the necessary hooks into the desktop OS for Exchange, MS Fax and the intranet Web page.
Even with the users as member of Windows 7's local "Administrators" group, that SBS client setup.exe will not run. I have been working with Microsoft now for more than three weeks for a solution and based on most things I read, I am not the only one having this same issue. The standard answer is upgrade to SBS 2008. But wait, wasn't one of the big soap-box shouts that Microsoft touted was that Windows 7 is more backward-compatible than Vista?
Here is also more proof that this is statement is incorrect. You set up your users to have a home directory "\\servername\users\%username%" (which is also where their roaming profiles are located). You have a Windows 7 machine join the domain, log on as a user and try to get your roaming profile, but all you get is a temporary profile. You look at the server, and guess what? Windows 7 has created a new home folder called "\\servername\users\%username.V2%" and that folder has NO permissions assigned to it.
We are looking at replacing 23 machines. Guess we will have to go out and dig up copies of XP that are still available since Windows 7 won't work.
Mike, that sounds frustrating beyond belief. As you said, you surely aren't alone in having that kind of problem. Sometimes, Microsoft forgets that businesses don't just move to the latest version of a product as soon as it comes out. Microsoft has gotten much better about backward compatibility, but clearly there's still work to do in that area.
Thanks to Frank and Mike for their contributions and to everyone who has taken the time to write recently. We're going to get back to running reader e-mails more often, so send your thoughts on all and sundry topics to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/16/2010 at 1:23 PM5 comments
Apparently yesterday's patches were not quite good enough. Four zero-day bugs from the infamous Stuxnet worm seem to have gone un-patched.
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/15/2010 at 1:23 PM0 comments
Is the recession over? Does it feel over? It doesn't really matter all that much what the stock market is doing or what leading economic indicators say as long as the job market is still lousy.
Fortunately, though, a group called TechAmerica says that tech jobs actually picked up a bit in the first half of 2010... by 0.5 percent. But hey, a bump is a bump.
Considering that the year-over-year numbers from TechAmerica, which sounds like the name of a nerdy 1970s singing group (remember Up with People?), show a gain in hiring in 2010 versus a loss of jobs in 2009, things are looking better.
But they're not looking that much better. Dig this quote from Chris Paoli's rcpmag.com story on this whole deal:
"'Though the tech industry was among the last to feel the effects of the economic downturn of 2008-2009, it was not immune to job loss and is only slowly showing signs of climbing out of it,' said Josh James, vice president for research and industry analysis at TechAmerica Foundation, in a press release. 'Tech employment as of June 2010 stood at 5.78 million, compared to 5.99 million in January 2009. So there is still a way to go before we've made up for lost jobs, and continued recovery is by no means certain.'"
Way to be a floater in the punch bowl there, Josh. Seriously, would it kill somebody to deliver good news without dropping in a heavy dose of caveats? Oh, well, a little good news is better than more bad news we suppose. And for about 30,000 people in the tech industry (according to TechAmerica), the recession "ended" in the first half of 2010. We like hearing that.
How worried are you about your job? If you're not working, how tough has finding a job been? Tell all to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/15/2010 at 1:23 PM0 comments
This is the release that's meant to be a Salesforce.com killer. Wonder what Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com's CEO, of course) will have to say about that...
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/15/2010 at 1:23 PM0 comments
Faithful readers (and those of you who only check in once in a while), your editor is expecting a major life event that could happen at any moment. As such, RCPU may suddenly be taken over by guest writers for a week or more. Not to worry, though. These folks are the Earl Morrall of RCPU writers. (Of course, you know that Earl Morrall was the greatest backup quarterback of all time. He led the undefeated 1972 Dolphins to nine of their 17 wins…at the age of 38.) Scott Bekker, Jeff Schwartz and Doug Barney are all prepared to strap on the helmet in case your editor has to spend some time on the sidelines. Just don't start liking them more than you like the "normal" RCPU... Also, other than this entry, RCPU is going to be pretty short the next couple of days. So enjoy that while it lasts.
Thanks,
Lee
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/15/2010 at 1:23 PM0 comments
So, those darn Russians are at it again, infiltrating dissident groups and confiscating their computers in the name of...checking for pirated Microsoft software. Redmond, blissfully unaware of this sort of thing, is now familiar with the law of unintended consequences.
But in fairness to Microsoft (and we're not suggesting in any way that Microsoft was complicit in this Russian stuff -- in fact, we're sure that it wasn't), Redmond is trying to sort the situation out so that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. If the Russians are going to run a police state, couldn't they at least go back to using their old logo? It was way cooler than anything they have now.
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/13/2010 at 1:23 PM3 comments
This wasn't the Steve whose job was rumored to be on the line. In fact, he really never seemed to go by Steve at all, but we needed to call him that in order to come up with a clever headline that would create some confusion with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Unlike Ballmer, who has been under fire for many quarters for years now, Stephen Elop was a standout at Microsoft as head of the company's Office and Dynamics product lines, among others. That must be why Nokia chose Elop to be its next CEO.
We, too, are surprised to hear that Nokia still exists, but with Elop at the helm the company isn't Finnish yet; in fact, it's just getting started. (Thank you! We'll be here all week.) Seriously, though, we have no doubt in Elop's ability to get Nokia back on track.
What we are wondering is how much of a magnet Microsoft still is for executives these days. Now, obviously, a CEO gig at a company such as Nokia trumps even a high-level job in Redmond (we guess), but Microsoft seems to be losing more net brain power than it's bringing in.
Maybe that's because Microsoft isn't a sure-thing stock moneymaker anymore and hasn't been for quite a while. Those options just don't look as attractive as they used to. Or maybe it's because the company is experiencing something of a vision deficit since the departure of Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie being a relative disappointment in the messiah department.
In any case, with one Steve moving on, there's another who has another big pair of shoes to fill and will, no doubt, have to field a few more questions about his own future.
Is Microsoft as attractive an employer as it once was? Send your thoughts on the matter to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/13/2010 at 1:23 PM0 comments
Sasquatch? No, Office Communications Server, which is now named Lync Server 2010 in honor, presumably, of that guy from the Mod Squad (who spelled it Linc, but we couldn't resist a late-'60s TV reference. All you over 50s say what!) .
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/13/2010 at 1:23 PM0 comments
So, that Microsoft-Yahoo search deal? It's kind of working a little bit! With Bing now running Yahoo, Microsoft's consumer-search market-share numbers now seem, at least, to be marginally less pathetic than they used to be. Keep on foisting that sword at those windmills, Don Microxofte.
Oh, by the way, while Microsoft was looking slightly less non-competitive in consumer search, Google came out with some sort of instant-search thing that's supposed to make searching faster than thinking (or, at least, faster than typing).
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/09/2010 at 1:23 PM0 comments
You know that it's a slow news day when Windows XP cracks the headlines, but you also know that the operating system is alive and well when its death is reported over and over again.
There's no free support left for Windows XP, and soon, Dell, once again one of the industry's leading PC makers after having survived a bit of a dip, will stop offering XP as the pre-loaded OS on its machines. Evidently, Dell doesn't really want to stop selling XP on its boxes. Read between the lines (or just read the actual lines) of a Dell blog post on the XP issue, and it seems pretty clear that Microsoft is the puppet master in this scenario.
Well, of course it is. Isn't that normally the case when it comes to PCs? Besides, XP is nearly a decade old. It's outdated. Shouldn't we all just move to Windows 7 now? Maybe...but we won't because XP still works just fine for most users and because now is still not a great time at many companies for IT investment that isn't absolutely necessary.
Still, Microsoft is just doing what it has to do for its own self-interest -- and the move is good for partners, who might just be able to sell some hardware refreshes and OS upgrades if they can make the argument that XP is going away forever and ever, like right now...even if it's clearly still with us.
How long do you plan to hang on to Windows XP? Send your answers to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 09/09/2010 at 1:23 PM13 comments