Windows *Bleep* and My Small Business

Microsoft Windows Vista.

"Vista" can almost be classified as a four-letter word if you talk to most of my clients. Over the past year it has managed to be negatively hyped more than any other Microsoft-related product in recent memory. Nine out of ten business owners are interested in Vista, but typically precede their questions with "I heard Vista is really bad, but..."


Here's the deal, as a Microsoft Gold Partner our company has been "required" to run Vista on all of our computers 6 months prior to its release and I have found it fine to work with. As many complaints as I have seen about the UAC prompts and all the other "annoyances" that supposedly protect users from themselves, I have yet to encounter a Vista issue that has prevented me from being productive. Understanding that we are still waiting on SP1 and there are plenty of bugs to be squashed, Vista is fine, Vista works well on hardware that is appropriate for running it.

Nearly every complaint I have discussed with clients can be attributed to:

I. Lack of user training on the new look and feel

II. Something that is being caused by design or new feature i.e. UAC prompts when the person decides to try to install spyware through a website

III. The software they are trying to use has not been developed for Vista, or is not Vista compatible yet. In other words, that is not Microsoft's fault - after all, its only been over a year since it has been released.

Over the next couple of years, the major manufacturers will start eliminating Windows XP as an offering, so when a client asks "When do I need to move to Vista?" my response is usually simple. Whenever you can begin planning for the financial and training costs. The key word here is "planning" - in other words, we will all have to make the move to Vista at some point so do it on your own terms, not because Dell or HP won't sell you Windows XP Pro anymore and you are forced to Vista.

Plan on cost of new hardware, licensing, upgraded software costs, and most importantly training costs. All of these things will be major factors in "when and how" you upgrade your organization to Vista. Understand that in order to do it right, migrating requires adequate planning and design by your technology firm - just going out and buying Vista computers will not cut it.

With proper assessment and design, your Vista migration can be smooth, allowing you to deal with the unending complaints because you moved the cheese. Technology can only help you so much so do not let your users fear changes!