That's the "real world" there. Try to convince a 62 yr old admin assistant that would rather be using an IBM Selectric that she needs to use this "better" operating system and word processor. Most real world business work is simple documents of very few pages that don't need to do fancy table of contents, foot notes, etc. much less XML formatting, HTML coding and such.

It's the 21st century! We're going to get more advanced. Whether the 62 year old assistant jumps aboard or not, it's not changing the fact we're going to continue to advance! In another thread I stated that ALL engineers at KU are ran through a programming class. They're thinking about increasing it. It doesn't matter whether you're chemical engineer, nuclear, petroleum, civil, mechanical, architectural, computer, electrical. I suggest we get off the "lets not move forward notion" and move forward before the US is left behind in the dust, the the younger population overtakes the older population in the industry!

I think the problem is you are judging these products from the vantage point of a very technology literate college student vs what 90% of corporate world users are. You can make all the tweaks and adjustments I recall you recommending to another Vista user to get a stable platform. After 15 or 20 yrs supporting these products, sometimes change ain't always good.

D-Rod; you are such a young spirit - but you have no idea what the corporate environment is - you'll have to trust us on this.

As HB said, most people do not have the need for fancy word processing features. In fact, the more they tend to "play" with things, when all the boss wants is a simple letter, the more they risk getting yelled at for wasting time.

Ever since Microsoft introduced the "squiggly" red spell-check feature way back in Word 6 - there has been no need for any word processor improvement. The fact that Microsoft can still make money on a word processor is truly amazing.

And I am not saying change is not needed - but change for change's sake is not good. Not all change is a move forward. Afterall, if Microsoft isn't selling "new" software, they make no money. So Microsoft pushes "new and improved" software, and make my users have to be retrained to use a word processor, because they have to do that to make money. Maybe Microsoft is a victim of their own success, I don't know, but I do know that there better be a vaild reason for change.

That $150K application is on new hardware by the way; its not an antique application. Its also a client-server application. While there is a trend away from this model to web applications, the application's performance demands the client/server model, because it is a real-time data collection system.

The application just doesn't need Vista on the workstations to run, and there is no value added to the application by upgrading to Vista, and we see no value in paying the development costs to "upgrade". There can be a real risk here by taking a critical application to the "bleeding edge". We're not talking games and word processors here. Some software is such that lives can literally depend on it working properly.

And we have a very integrated network, which doesn't need any of the thumb-drive stuff you are suggesting. In my view, Vista doesn't really bring much of anything new to the table, other than having to upgrade a lot of the application software.

We have a very comprehensive in-house lab-tested hardening process that makes our systems very secure. In fact, the biggest security problem that exists is not the operating system - its the keyboard pushers.

If you cannot produce valid reasons to the boss to "upgrade", you are not going to go far in your career. If I tried to "sell" Vista to the boss, and I could not give him a very good example of why we need to replace the $150K system; he is going to take quite a dim view if I tell him "buddy, you better get with the program".

But that will never happen because I don't ever plan on upgrading to Vista corporately. And I am not alone; there are leigons of my counterparts that never plan on changing to Vista.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that Vista should die for the sake of XP. If Vista floats your boat, have at it. But in the professional world Vista doesn't even get out of the gate for all the reasons Al very eloquently explained. All I'm saying is, for the foreseeable future, XP needs to stay around. God knows Microshaft makes enough money to support both.

I had dinner the other night with a fellow who is writing code for the successor program to Vista. He spent ten minutes apologizing for Vista, putting it in the 'Window ME' category, and assuring me that the follow-up program is going to be very tight, very stable, on time, and with an emphasis on solidity rather than bells and whistles.

Whether they can do it remains to be seen---but that's the word from a programmer at Microsoft.

Just the new PowerPoint functionality in Office 2007 makes it a must have for me. The new smart graphics are awesome. I am not the artistic type but now I have really nice looking presentations.

*Unnecessary response....

I can't imagine the cost my school district would entail trying to upgrade to Vista. A very tiny percentage of our current machines are able to run it, the ones that can are in the video editing labs.

So, as others mentioned, between hardware, software and training costs, I don't even want to think about that bill. I'm certain the local taxpayers don't want to hear about it.

Windows bloatware drives me nuts. Wife got Office 2007 and you can't even read it on Office 2003 unless you save it twice, once as "2003 Office". That is just nuts.

And have you looked at how much space Vista takes up? Jeeeez...

I'll admit that I don't want to go back to Windows 3.1 that took up just under 4 MB of space on my huge 140MB hdd. And I had to set up the DOS kernal so that I could optimize the 640kb of RAM there. Boy, those WEREN'T the days.

But todays programs are insanely bloated, needlessly so.

BTW, 4 year old laptop and 2 year old desktop both with XP Pro, neither has ever crashed for any reason I can remember.

If you can switch to Apple, do it. Once you go Mac, you'll never go back.

Baloney! Used Mac at work for two years and couldn't wait to get back to 'work'. You guys are up to what, 3% of the market???

(Yeah fine---not an even playing field. But it woulda been different if Steve had known the difference between hardware and software...)

I hear ya, as I "learned" on a PC. But trust me on this. Go to an Apple store and test drive 'em. Things are different now.

In fact, I use Quicken 2008 Home/Business for the PC on my MAC because the MAC version of Quicken sucks. Point is, there's nothing it won't read...Office etc., unlike years before.

Troop,
MS has a free converter pack for Office 2003 that allows it to open Office 2007 files.

10% or somewhere in there. Much higher than 3%!

Apple sales were close to 20% of new computers sold in 2007.