One reason the OS wars don't matter

To the comment from Leo, I

To the comment from Leo, I have just finnished reading a few documents from Preston Gralla in reference to Vista. To say he is closed-minded is like calling the pacific ocean a puddle. It is one thing to promote your products technological advancements but when there has been as much panic and mad scambling that the Vista OS has created. It might be time to take off the blinders put on the adult pants and own up to the huge amount of problems that are extremely evident in Vista.

Oh, did I mention that I read like 4 of his articles all in a row. I think I just needed a quick vent.

Hey, Sam, have you even

Hey, Sam, have you even triiiiied Vista? It is painless good fun. I just loaded it up on our low-end P4 systems at school, and it rocks with but a mere gig of RAM. And that's the last time I will need to touch those systems. Deployed onto over 60 machines on a Saturday morning, I'll load up the other 80 machines when I find the keys to the doors. Driver issues? Of what driver issues do you speak, young man? A wide variety of donated hardware, and Vista lapped it up with a purr. I've been there, I've done that, I know. You? I think we can all agree: hooray for Vista!

Good luck with that 'Snow Leopard' thing, maybe Apple got it right this time?

are you one of those 15 year olds running

school networks?

Loading up Vista on random donated machines with 1GHz P4s and 1G DRAM without having to track down drivers for each machine configuration?

Given the litany of complaints from writers and ordinary users who got Vista preinstalled and still had serious trouble, nobody believes your confession that you've loaded up 80 machines with a single-user licensed copy of Vista and gotten them all working without trouble.

Would you like to give your school's real name and address so our friends at the Business Software Alliance can verify your claims?

Or just admit that you're an astroturfer and give the name of the PR agency you're collecting checks from?

Just stumbled across this

Just stumbled across this thread again. Hey, anonymous, we have volume license rights to Vista, XP Pro, Office 2003, Office 2007, and a whole world of Microsoft software you don't know even exists. We pay for it, Jack, and it's a bargain.

"nobody believes your confession" . . . believe. Um, 'low-end' means 2.0-2.4 533MHz FSB non-hyperthreaded, a gig of PC2700-3200, and an nVidia 5200 vid card. Shuttle SS51G, SS59G, Dell Dimensions and Compaq Evos of various stripes.

One of my former students worked out the unattend routine. Boot from CD, Vista installs off the server, just need to integrate the NIC drivers, of course. Vista/Windows Update has all the other drivers . . . WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Easy-peasy. But, then again, you haven't got a clue, do you? "litany of complaints" from who? The people I know who use Vista like Vista. And that's the vast majority, my friend. Dig it?

If I read your comment

If I read your comment correctly you are putting Vista on legacy machines, some of them donated machines. Why would you pay for a new site license for a bunch of old machines when you already had a license for whatever OS they had on them? Of course the donated machines don't come with a license. Seems like you are not following Microsoft's rules. There could be heavy financial consequences for your school. Bad idea. Next time don't jeopardize the finances of your school. In fact you better reformat and put a Linux distro on those machines right now. The $ cost will be $0. Since they are public machines I would put a kiosk version on so students can't customize the machines. If you paid a site license, would you mind posting the cost of the licenses for OS and each ap the school has a license for and naming each of the aps and how many machines the site license covers? I would be curious to know.

Sure. Microsoft gives

Sure. Microsoft gives Windows 98 rights to legacy donations for parochial schools like ours, but I'm not going to subject my students to that. Our blanket license covers just about every Microsoft product know to man, stuff I never heard of until we bought in. I receive semi-annual update discs direct from Microsoft, with license codes delivered under separate cover. We're legit here, people!

You need to contact a local company that deals in Microsoft licensing on behalf of education. It's pretty unbeleiveable. Everything is volume license: one key, unlimited installs. Sweet. And check out MSFN for ideas on how to install ANYTING MS in unattended fashion. Just put the CD in, power up, and walk away . . . return two hours later and EVERYTHING is configured uniformly, ready for action.

Sorry, but Linux is for losers. And the Mac labs at the public school down the road sit empty. It's a Microsoft world, people. Learn it, know it, love it.