Texas Plans Ban of Vista From Government PCs

[ravenware]

Juan Hinojosa proposed the bill because
"of the many reports of problems with Vista."

This is ridiculous. The decision to not use(or ban) an os, should fall on the shoulders of your IT personnel and not the random bullsh** you find on a google search.

Their IT staff should have complete control over what operating systems are being deployed on government owned computers. Operating systems should be researched and thoroughly tested before deployment.
This smacks of incompetence. There is no reason to pass a bill to ban the use of an operating system.

What a waste of tax payer money. Juan Hinojosa and IT personnel in charge of the Government owned computers should receive an early Christmas present, a nice pink slip.

 

[Guest]

I ran XP on a 2Ghz core2duo with 2GB ram, Win 98 on a P3 350Mhz with 256MB ram, and Windows Vista on a core2duo 3,2Ghz with 4GB ram (though in reality it's impossible but 6GB is needed for the 32bit version, and at least 8GB is needed for the 64bit version to function as fine, as the other operating systems); and all operating systems have about the same system response.

I don't think Windows 7 is any improvement over XP. System response, power saving, and productivity matter!
What good is a system running on a Core2Duo 2Ghz, with 4GB, with advanced powersaving settings, where the majority of the time the processor needs to run half the speed, over a WinXP OS with half the hardware requirements and power, and yet be as productive as the other?

The only who can benefit from Windows7 is gamers, and users who really find that visual appearance matters!
For me,the visual appearance is just a resource hog I'd want to get rid of as soon as possible.

Windows came from DOS to make basic operation faster, easier, more visible, and make life more productive.
A lot in Windows 7 does not support this ideology anymore!

I wished there would be an operating system out there that mimics WinXP with some basic upgrades (like DX11 compatibility, driver compatibility of newer devices, etc...)

 

[hurbt]

Government in baseball, government in IT, government in healthcare... they need to just get the hell out of all this stuff and let us live our lives, per the Constitution.

I'm sick of power hungry politicians taking my hard earned money, time, and freedom.

 

[avericia]

I've had Vista for 7 months now and i hate it more every day!!!! SCREW YOU MICROSOFT I have some type of stupid vista related issues with installing games and patches so many times i can't begin to count. Vista is fast with good hardware q9550@3.2 but dam its by far the worst OS that i have ever used, from xp,98,3.1 as far as it stopping you from doing things you want to do and then not allowing things to run correctly that you already had to click allow to and just being a pain in the ass all around. At this point i wish i had a choice because i don't want to buy microsoft sigh.... but i'm not gona get stuck with an apple OS and no software

 

[vladtepes]

[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]I often criticize Microsoft and Vista, but this is my job. I am IT person. The politicians are stepping over the line. This is really, really unacceptable. How the hell this is even possible in US? A month ago, we read about Cuba's Linux, but even the Cuban government is offering it as alternative, and is not banning the Windows. So I am wondering, is the US Socialism starts from Texas?![/citation]
I think you are reading it wrong. They are banning Vista from Government PC's, not users. TCO for Vista is HUGE unless you have good hardware. In times of crisis is better to save taxpayers money dont you think?

 

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]vladtepes[/nom]I think you are reading it wrong. They are banning Vista from Government PC's, not users. TCO for Vista is HUGE unless you have good hardware. In times of crisis is better to save taxpayers money dont you think?[/citation]
I am all about saving money. Choosing OS is a technical decision and has to be done by System Administrators not the manager. The manager has to define clear business objective and mission and provide support to technical people to select the best solution. If Vista work great, use it. If Linux work even better it is free. What politicians have to demand is open standards free from patent extortion. For example requirement to use Open Document Format (ODF) instead of propriety formats that lock you in to only single business framework. That is how TCO is reduced. Not by banning use of Vista. For example I work for quasi government organization and they buy new PC. Pay the license for Vista, then downgrade it to XP. How that reduces the cost?!

ps. I would like to apologize to all people from Texas. I don't apply they are socialists. It is just one politician, who is pursuing his personal agenda.

 

[joex444]

some consumers shy away from Windows Vista based on performance and other things they have heard.

Sen. Juan Hinojosa proposed the bill because "of the many reports of problems with Vista."

So, from what I can gather, NOBODY involved with this has ever TRIED Vista themselves? Yeah, good job guys.

As someone who's used Vista since RELEASE, I can tell you that Vista initially had some problems, but it was mostly related to hardware companies not providing good drivers. The most famous example is the nVidia drivers, they used to crash. Used to -- they've been fine for over 2.5 years now. Most of the reports of these "problems" are attributed to either out of date information/rumors, or sheer consumer ignorance. Yeah, Vista moved around some things like where you change the resolution. Big deal, find it and adapt. You're human, you have a brain, it isn't that hard. The lawsuit over "Vista capable" not running Aero is ridiculous, but just more bad press and another jumping point for people to spread these anti-Vista rumors.

FWIW, I dualboot between Vista x64 and XP x32 (figured this would ensure ultimate compatibility; I run 8GB RAM). Fact of the matter is I haven't loaded XP at all in 2009. None of the programs I use are incompatible with Vista, that's another one of those things "they" tell people -- its just a scare tactic.

What I can understand is that for an Administrator of a large organization, and especially the IT workers, not wanting to upgrade. XP was a big leap over 98SE, but not really over Win2K. By now, you can't really run Win2K as a primary OS, the oldest system supported is XP. So in these settings, your only two choices are XP or Vista for the workers PCs. But consider that these workers generally are very ignorant with computing, they have little understanding of much more than "I clicked this and it didn't work". As a support person, changing everyone over to Vista presents a nightmare. Not for technical reasons, but because the users would be bitching about "I used to go here to do XYZ, and now that doesn't work. Where is XYZ? Why couldn't they leave it alone!" It's just stupid crap they don't want to put up with. But from a technical POV, Vista is not inferior to XP at this time. Plus, when you consider new hardware being as fast as it is, you really want to run 4, 6, or 8GB. You can go with XP x64, or Vista x64. But here, Vista x64 has newer and more drivers! XP x64 never really caught on.

 

[the_one111]

My question is why haven't they banned OSX if they are going to ban vista.

Because its pretty much worthless for business IMO..

I am truly appalled at how stupid people are getting. "Age of missinformation" indeed.

 

[warezme]

Having worked as Sys Admin for the corporate side (now in education), most businesses unless big and prosperous have pretty low requirements for computer hardware, with machines that rarely exceed 2GB or RAM. In there lies the rub with Vista. It does not do well with machines with less than 3GB of RAM. Plus both corporate and Vista clients have an insane desire to open everything they can possibly think of and never close anything or reboot on a regular basis. This sort of behavior is fairly tolerant on a 2GB XP machine..., not so much on Vista. If ALL people were simply educated to close their apps when finished using them and to reboot at least two times a week. Frankly, every Sys Admin and IT person in the world would be happier as well as themselves because their machines would run faster and stay more stable.

 

[rgsaunders]

Many of you seem to forget that IT decisions in a corporate/government environment are not solely based on technical merit, but must also take into account business, and in this case, there seems to be no merit in changing OS when their current IT platform is working fine. Vista does work quite nicely with the latest software in standard configurations, however many departments don't work in this manner. They frequently have highly specialized heritage software which is prohibitively expensive to upgrade or replace, or they have highly customized versions of standard office software which doesn't work well with Vista, specially Vista 64. The bottom line on these major changes is really "The Bottom Line", does it improve productivity sufficiently to raise our profit margins or reduce our manpower requirements. If it doesn't do that, its not worth doing.

 

[patrickd26]

Vista failed because they didn't consider IT departments. How does Vista get into an organization??? It gets into a business by approval from the IT department!! IT is the first line of folk to load it on their own machines. I can tell you the the first Vista machine in our 1000 pc enviroment was the last one!! I ordered a new pc with Vista Business on it and found out that I couldn't load the Active Directory tools without doing some hacked up DLL crap. Then came all the annoying pop-ups asking me if i REALLY wanted to go into Control Panel. Telnet?? Oh, now I have to INSTALL that option. It wasn't any one major issue with the OS that caused its' complete failure. It was all the "little things". Good riddance Vista. I really hope they get it right with Windows 7.

 

[jkflipflop98]

[citation][nom]avericia[/nom]I've had Vista for 7 months now and i hate it more every day!!!! SCREW YOU MICROSOFT I have some type of stupid vista related issues with installing games and patches so many times i can't begin to count. Vista is fast with good hardware q9550@3.2 but dam its by far the worst OS that i have ever used, from xp,98,3.1 as far as it stopping you from doing things you want to do and then not allowing things to run correctly that you already had to click allow to and just being a pain in the ass all around. At this point i wish i had a choice because i don't want to buy microsoft sigh.... but i'm not gona get stuck with an apple OS and no software[/citation]


. . .Wow.

 

[the_one111]

Just because you don't know how to effectively not fail at life doesn't mean you blame the OS.

I mean.. I have had vista for a year and I LOVE it. Sure it has a few bugs. UAC is annoying. Sure. But what is honestly BAD about it? So far it hasn't had any errors or complications. And I even got a game from like 1994 to run on it flawlessly. Not backwards compatible my ***.

If anyone actually took the time to look at the OS and get past their microsoft hate and mac-o-phillia fanaticism they would see a highly effective and capable OS.

[/rant]

 

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]rgsaunders[/nom]Many of you seem to forget that IT decisions in a corporate/government environment are not solely based on technical merit, but must also take into account business, and in this case, there seems to be no merit in changing OS when their current IT platform is working fine. Vista does work quite nicely with the latest software in standard configurations, however many departments don't work in this manner. They frequently have highly specialized heritage software which is prohibitively expensive to upgrade or replace, or they have highly customized versions of standard office software which doesn't work well with Vista, specially Vista 64. The bottom line on these major changes is really "The Bottom Line", does it improve productivity sufficiently to raise our profit margins or reduce our manpower requirements. If it doesn't do that, its not worth doing.[/citation]
You are 100% correct, but that is not the problem. The state government is voting on policy (a.k.a a law) that will prevent the System Administrators and their managers to use Vista when it makes sense. For example When I have a Laptop that hold a thousands of health records and it has to work in Windows environment, would I (a SysAdmin) choose:
a) XP + third party encryption software (additional cost), or
b) Vista with build-in BitDefender disk encryption, or
c) XP with no encryption and send letters to everyone from the database that their SSN is been compromised when the laptop get stolen. (Remember most of those folks are not Sara Palin and they don't have FBI on staff to investigate their case when their identity is stolen.)
See my problem when some politicians is voting on business/technical polices?

 

[keither5150]

@avericia

If you can't figure out how to turn the UAC off, you need it.

 

[deltatux]

Been running Windows Vista (now Server 2008) since I built this machine a year ago and Vista has yet to fail me. Microsoft has finally woke up (maybe after a few buddy slaps from the friendly penguin) to its security problems in their previous OS and made Vista. Sure, initially it was really crappy, I even thought it was a laughable OS. However, Microsoft fixed a lot of things. My general is that usually wait for the first large fixes before jumping on the technology and adopt it fully. I reverted back to my Linux install and scrubbed Windows Vista and use my XP partition until SP1.

Now, I put Linux in a virtual machine (just because I'm just too lazy to even dual boot) and run Server 2008 as the main operating system. With full 64-bit support, it runs like a champ. I do have complaints of Windows 7 (like transparency around the border even maximized, unlike in Vista, it turns into a solid colour) so I think I'm sticking to Windows Server 2008 unless there's something I need in Windows 7 that isn't already in Server 2008 or Vista.

I guess I'm the minority who isn't going to do an exodus to Windows 7 since my current installs are working perfectly. Why shell out extra cash when I can save 'em, esp. in the current state of the economy.

deltatux

 

[norbs]

[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]You are 100% correct, but that is not the problem. The state government is voting on policy (a.k.a a law) that will prevent the System Administrators and their managers to use Vista when it makes sense. For example When I have a Laptop that hold a thousands of health records and it has to work in Windows environment, would I (a SysAdmin) choose:a) XP + third party encryption software (additional cost), orb) Vista with build-in BitDefender disk encryption, orc) XP with no encryption and send letters to everyone from the database that their SSN is been compromised when the laptop get stolen. (Remember most of those folks are not Sara Palin and they don't have FBI on staff to investigate their case when their identity is stolen.) See my problem when some politicians is voting on business/technical polices?[/citation]

Eh.. there are free encryption softwares out there truecrypt.org for example has a very nice and easy to use encryption software. Dell offers hardware encryption. This is a poor reason to switch to vista. I tried to give vista a chance many times. The only thing i like about vista is the prettier media center (not more functional either).

 

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]norbs[/nom]Eh.. there are free encryption softwares out there truecrypt.org for example has a very nice and easy to use encryption software. Dell offers hardware encryption. This is a poor reason to switch to vista. I tried to give vista a chance many times. The only thing i like about vista is the prettier media center (not more functional either).[/citation]
Question1: What do I use to encrypt my portable devices?
Answer1: TrueCrypt. It is the best solution for my needs.
Question2: Why I can not use it at work?
Answer2: Because the policies voted by the county commissioners allows only software from vendors that are included in an approval list.
Question3: Why truecrypt.org is not on the approve list?
Answer3: Because truecrypt.org do not employ sellmans, who can take committee member to very expensive restaurant for lunch while negotiating.

Again. It is not argument to adopt Vista, or not. It is argument should the politicians to decide which software to be used. My position is:
1. No, the government should not give preferances to any vendors.
2. Government could demand use of standards and open protocols that allow all vendors to implement them without fear to be sued by the competitor.
Anything else is sign of Big Scale Corruption.

 

[hemelskonijn]

Wow what a load of morons here...

Ofcourse some software will cost more to implement and some will give you more problems than others.
You all want tax cuts but on the other hand the government is not allowed to limit the endless choice of operating systems to !microsoft! Windows or Mac OS.

If you run vista without any problems than congratulations to you but what works for you might not work for some one else.
Why is it unacceptable not to like vista without being a basher ?
I dont like it and i will never like it but its not like i care what other people run on their systems.

Grow up and accept that the texas government is working on this proposal to spare some of your tax money.

 

[bourgeoisdude]

Since most of the US military banned the use of XP until 2005, I hardley find this surprising.

 

[tiredwolf]

Vista has bee nothing but a head ache for me, I use it for one things. Games, I used to not even use it for that because of the crashes I kept having especially with older games, since SP1 the crashes are allot less frequent, but as a core operating systme it really annoys me. Ubuntu is the easiest to use and gives me the least hassle, for the most part it just installs all the drivers and configures everything for me. And if something doesn't work, it's linux, I can fix it myself.

 

[estebanhillcoat]

People, where do you live? Do you have a "different" version of VIsta there????

1)Vista DOES NOT work BETTER than XP, in fact its clearly a downgrade.Is MUCH more INSECURE than XP because it´s slow, resource hungry and FULL OF BUGS.

2)Can´t believe i´m reading that some people try to even compare it with OS X.

a)leopard OS X is a FAST, EFFICIENT and out-of-the-box secure OS while Vista is insecure even without an inet. connection.
b)Leopard is a REAL upgrade from TIGER. It offers more speed and functions.
c)Leopard works in 2 architectures (x86 & ppc) without problems. Vista hardly gets running on x86.
e)User interface on OSX is unique, a mixture of refinement and simplicity. However, MICROSOFTS XP interface IS EASIER TO USE and more INTUITIVE. On the other side, VISTA´s inteface is like a woman with too much make up.

Dont try to deny the fact that M$crosoft is still a MONOPOLY and believes that money has to be made based on extorsion.
The truth is that, though no body needs vista cause XP, with lots of flaws does the job. M$ only cares about selling but when you don´t have COMPETITION you´re not pushed to do your best.

REMEMBER THAT MICROSOFT IS SOFTWARE COMPANY!!! THEIR ENSIGNG ship ARE THEIR OSs, SO IF YOU ARE A CAR MAKER AND CAN´T GET YOUR BEST CAR START ENGINES YOU SHOULD RE-THINK YOUR STRATEGY AND PERHAPS SPEND MORE MONEY ON DEVELOPEMENT THAN ADVERTISING.

PD:any way... they´re still making billions and that waht they care about.

 

[the_one111]

@ Estebanhillcoat OSX is a PIECE OF CRAP, sure for web browsing it may be fine, but anything else it falls short in comparison with vista AND xp.

And you told us nothing of these "bugs" that you claim vista has.

read this: http://gizmodo.com/5019908/ten-reasons-why-vista-isnt-that-bad

The reason vista is slower in GAMES is because it uses DirectX 10. Which in turn looks better and takes more power.

Vista IS slower than XP. Duh. XP has been around for YEARS and has been enhanced and tweaked to the letter. Vista has been around about one year. But from what I've seen people think it MUST be as good as a performer as a already mature and fully patched OS.

 

[resonance451]

Idiots. A bunch of idiots. What an embarrassment. The government buys into propaganda... again.

 

[customisbetter]

I work as a support technician for over 5 thousand machines on my campus. Most are PCs running XP Pro. At the beginning of August, a movement was filed to begin switching new machines over to Windows Vista Enterprise x64.

The only machines that still have this operating system are 6 machines used by IT workers in my office (with a TON of troubles), and a dozen or so spread around campus for Students who NEED Vista. There are also severe limits to using these machines, so they are rarely used.

Vista was too drastic of a change from XP. Not many things are the same, especially for IT needs. Then there are the amount of stability problems that we have faced.

That is my educated opinion of Windows Vista in an Enterprise environment. I feel that the Texas Senate made a good decision.