Now that's an interesting question. Which version are you most enamored with? Let's start by translating the version numbers into names. Windows 5.1 (client version) is Windows XP. Windows 6 client version is Windows Vista. Windows 7 ... well it doesn't exist yet, but it has been in the news this week.
Earlier this week, Bill Gates announced that Windows 7, code name of "Blackcomb" (named for a ski slope at Whistler, British Columbia), would be available sometime in 2009. Now unless you're in love with Vista, that's exciting. (And if you've installed Vista and like it, you may have been annoyed that there could be a new OS by next year.) However, by the next day, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would not see the light of day prior to 2010.
A lot of people have resisted using Vista, myself included. If you're running a laptop, performance could be better. If your laptop runs with 64-bit hardware, Vista can be really nice. Now my saying I don't like Vista is almost blasphemous, since as a former Microsoft employee I had ample opportunity to "drink the Kool-Aid." However, I need an operating system that I can use as a host system to run virtual machines on (which I need to do when I'm writing technical books), and XP has less system requirements than Vista. Not to say I haven't looked at it, I'm just - like I did with Windows 95, being slow to jump on the bandwagon. Who knows, I may end up waiting for Windows 98 .... er Windows 7.
There are some nice features in Windows Vista. But it has hefty hardware requirements, although its certainly not the first new version of software that was guilty of that. Opinions? Thoughts? Are you staying with XP? Upgrading to Vista? Going to Linux or elsewhere?
Kerrie Meyler, a Microsoft MOM MVP, is an independent consultant and trainer with more than 15 years of Information Technology experience. A previous senior technology specialist at Microsoft, she focused on infrastructure and management solutions, presenting at numerous product launches. More recently, she presented on Operations Manager 2007 and gave several podcasts at TechEd 2007.
Kerrie has worked with Microsoft Learning to develop Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC) for several courses, including the Implementing Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 course, and did the beta teach for that course.
Kerrie is the lead author of Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Unleashed and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed
Check out an excerpt from System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, Chapter 3: Looking Inside OpsMgr.
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Vista, the new ME
Vista. . . the new windows ME. If you force Vista to run like win xp it will run decent. Microsoft did infact drop the ball big time with the release of Vista. They should have waited in distributing it until ALL of the bugs were fixed. For all of those people that went out and bought Vista as soon as it came out, what did you expect? What, Microshaft would get it right the first time? HAH LAUGHABLE. Vista should be put into the same category as windows ME, the S**T category!!!
Vista ME?
Ouch!
Unfortunately, Microsoft does have a track record where it often takes several releases of a new product to get a lot of the kinks out. Windows 95 did not have a ton of bugs (I think? Remember, I didn't use it, although the 32 to 16 bit code switching was a bit ugly); I was just resisting the new user interface plus I was more interested in a more robust operating system for IT type people - at that time, Windows NT. Of course now, NT and the Win9x code bases are merged, so that option is no longer available.
Kerrie Meyler