Sysadmins, will you start using Vista and Vista-ish Server when they first go gold?

[Brazen]

We did not switch to XP until SP2 was out, and waited a few months after that even. We still use Win 2000 servers but will probably skip 2k3 altogether since our current servers are meeting our needs and don't need to waste money on licensing. I probably won't upgrade servers until at least one Service Pack for the Vista server is out.

Years ago, I worked for a large corporation and I guess I inherited this philosophy from the higher-ups there. Now I AM the higher-up at a small company and was wondering if this is still the way people think?

 

[Stiganator]

no. we haven't transistioned to 2k3 yet. Win2k server is working just fine and we have no intention of changing a good system.

 

[CQuinn]

Install it on a test machine, test to see what breaks.

Check to see what it makes better, check to see what it makes worse.

Check to see what updates to the Resource Kits / powertoys can be migrated and made useful on older workstations.

We're slowing migrating servers to 2k3 for better replication with our eastern data center, and as a "better" platform for
apps moving forward.

 

[Link19]

I have been to tons of places that just upgraded from 2000 to XP now. Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are going to be around for a LONG LONG TIME even after Vista is released. I mean think about it. No way companies would spend all that money to upgrade to Windows XP (which is almost 4 years old), and then expect to have to upgrade to Vista real fast once it comes out. It will be at least 3-4 years after Vista is released before companies that just upgraded to XP migrate to Vista. What do you think?

I am in favor of XP being kept around for a long time after Vista is released because Windows XP is still a good OS. However, everyone should have been in rush to upgrade once XP came out if they were already running POS Windows 98/ME. But Windows XP deserves to be kept around for a long time asfter Vista is released because Windows XP is a quality OS. POS Windows 98/ME never were and are not!!!

 

[Brazen]

Well, we didn't rush and buy up a bunch of XP licenses. We are still dominantly 2000 on the workstations too. We only started just last month installing XP on NEW machines only and any machines that need to be reloaded. Almost ALL of our machines have XP licenses, we've just always had the manufacturer install 2000 instead.

 

[rmrf]

I think that Windows 2000 Pro is the best fit for a corporate pc. The company I currently work for put's XP as a standard on all machines, and considering the way we like to spend money, any new computers that come in will have vista on them. I formatted my pc and installed linux, so the company is real concerned about "standards", and we do have some really close ties to microshaft, so that could be a reason we get the latest and greatest.

 

[bunker]

We just started transitioning all our win2k desktops to XP. Our servers are all win2k. We have 3 new servers coming in with server 2k3.

I don't see us going to vista until it's been out at least 4-5 years.

 

[imported_BikeDude]

I used to think like you guys... Most of our servers are 2k too, but I'm starting to see "the light" (2003). There's the small things, like minor improvements to the Driver Verifier, but there's also a rather major overhaul of IIS.

ISAPI plugins are now easier to wall off and if you are doing anything with certificates 2003 is your puppy. This week I tried to assign a third party certificate to our internal test web server. No go. My 2003 test server OTOH had several additional options in IIS' certificate management applet.

Sure, 2003 isn't all that different, but that's kind of what makes 2003 a good choice. It's a more refined version of Win2k.

Finally... Win2k is not hyperthread-aware. With two Xeon HT CPUs it will not know to properly prioritise the real cores. Nor is there an x64 version.

So, for your Intel based servers, you'll want XP or 2003, and for Athlon64 servers, you'll want the x64 versions of same.