Microsoft Windows 7: orgs can pay for 3 more years of support

[HEXUS]

Corporate and institutional customers can pay to keep Win 7 secure until Jan 2023.

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[azrael-]

I'd say there's probably a (very good) reason enterprises and institutions (as well as the ordinary sane person) haven't "updated" to Microsoft's latest "modern OS". 'nuff sed.

[philehidiot]

I'd say there's probably a (very good) reason enterprises and institutions (as well as the ordinary sane person) haven't "updated" to Microsoft's latest "modern OS". 'nuff sed.

I think a lot of the time it's just simply the cost and disruption of the whole thing. Plus they often have software which runs fine on one OS but the developer wants more money for the latest version to make it work on a newer OS and won't support the old version on the new OS.

[Tabbykatze]

I'd say there's probably a (very good) reason enterprises and institutions (as well as the ordinary sane person) haven't "updated" to Microsoft's latest "modern OS". 'nuff sed.

The very good reason is the effort, time and manpower it takes is phenomenal. Enterprises can control pretty much every aspect of Win10, including it's updating and installed applications through enterprise tools. Win10 enterprise is fine.

[cheesemp]

I'd say there's probably a (very good) reason enterprises and institutions (as well as the ordinary sane person) haven't "updated" to Microsoft's latest "modern OS". 'nuff sed.

The very good reason is the effort, time and manpower it takes is phenomenal. Enterprises can control pretty much every aspect of Win10, including it's updating and installed applications through enterprise tools. Win10 enterprise is fine.

This is very true. I was put on the list to be on the first beta for Win 10 at my organisation over a year ago. As far as I know its still on hold as they don't have the staff to keep on top of the existing install base let alone try something new! And I work for a big enterprise IT organisation...

[philehidiot]

Just out of interest, given that it's an IT company, would there be a way to install and run it on a VM for testing? So you have Windows 7 (for example) but you can test whether Windows 10 works properly in a VM environment meaning if there are any significant issues the user can just fall back immediately to 7 without any major disruption?

EDIT - apologies if this is a stupid question, just seems like a relatively easy way to minimise disruption but allow widespread testing pre-full deployment.

[Saracen]

The very good reason is the effort, time and manpower it takes is phenomenal. Enterprises can control pretty much every aspect of Win10, including it's updating and installed applications through enterprise tools. Win10 enterprise is fine.

It may be fine, but a lot of organisations are, very sensibly, loathe to move to a new platform unless there's a VERY convincing reason(s) to do so. This is because, fine or not, change implies risk and risk implies not inconsiderable costs to test and mitigate.

Then, you have to allow for staff retraIning. Some staff will be compurer-savvy and pick it up fast, but there are more thsn a few for whom a computer is a tool to do a job, and if you do so much as move where "print" is, you'll have to show them.

That is especially true where, for instance, what those staff actually use, day to day, is not gensric Windows or Office apps, but specialised sguff like customised accounting software, legal pracyice-management software, etc.

For those organisations, the important bit is that their real software runs smoothly, and Windows is only the playvorm it runs on and as long as it runs smoothly, it matters not what it runs on.

And of course, for larger organisations, even the rollout is a majof project. i worked in a consultancy role o one such project so large that going to Win 7 meanyt replacing many thousands of machines, many 20 years old, to install Win 7 and application software, took nezrly two years of testing, development, retesting, etc before the rollout started and nearly 6 years to complete the rollout in hundreds of locations across the country. It also had a bill in the tens of millions.

I don't see them going through that again any time soon.

Frankly, I believe the only reason the did it at all is because some of the hardware was prooprietary, and it was getting harder and harder to keep it going, and only by cannibalising some old hardware to get the bits to keep others going. The sriting was clearly on the wall that the stock of defunct hardware to break for bits was starting to dwindle, and the point where even that route clixed down was foreseeable.

Short of that, their attitude eas that it eas getting tje jpb done, and while it ain't broke, don't fix it. It was only that the status quo could not continue indefinitely that meant a major project had to be commenced to prevent real problems x years down the road.