The Vista Penalty: What If You Didn’t Upgrade?For Windows users, October 22 represents among other things, Decision Day. When Windows Vista was released, it was hard for both Microsoft and its installed user base to make a good case for upgrading to Vista. Vista received a lot of bad press early on (and even late in the game) for not having compatible drivers available for third-party hardware. The lack of critical drivers did more than prevent users from upgrading; it gave them an excuse NOT to upgrade.

Drivers Won’t Be A Windows 7 Killer

Microsoft doesn’t have control over third party manufacturers, and these manufacturers rightly hold the blame (at least in part) for Windows Vista’s lack of popular success. There are other things that made Vista less attractive, and Microsoft is in the driver’s seat on those issues. (Lack of real Active Directory support, for example, meant that Vista was uninteresting to enterprise.)

Despite Microsoft’s efforts to kill Windows XP, Vista’s lack of credible interaction with Windows Server 2003 was real justification for enterprise to sit out the Vista upgrade. This time around, Microsoft comes armed with an upgraded Windows Server 2008 product that fits hand-in-glove with Windows 7. The roadblocks to enterprise adoption have largely been removed but that leaves enterprise users in the curious condition of having to do a complete clean installation to migrate to Windows 7. It also promises to be a bumpy ride until the migration to Windows 7 is complete.

Microsoft won’t spend too much time coddling Windows XP users who don’t want to upgrade. After release date, users will be able to buy downgrade licenses for a few months that will allow them to install Windows XP. In the spring, however, the downgrade license will be withdrawn, leaving volume-licensing customers as the only rightful installers of Windows XP media.

Microsoft insisted (and probably rightly so) that manufacturers needed to come across with a signed, functional driver for their products by release date if they want to keep their “Vista-compatible” logos on their products. Major manufacturers, including Intel, Nvidia and ATI already have their drivers ready to go.

Microsoft also made Windows 7 available as a very generous, very public beta. Right now, there are millions of computers running a version of Windows 7 that’s within a hair’s breadth of the release version, and there have been no major complaints from users regarding flaky or unusable drivers. For someone like me, that’s a comforting sign that the release will go smoothly and consumers can be relatively confident that if their computer is up to snuff, the Windows 7 migration should be straightforward – even if that does require a clean installation.

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Microsoft released the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) Beta 2 this week, in another sign that the company is ramping up for the release of Windows 7. Earlier this week, the company squashed rumors that the OS was being released to manufacturers. In a statement, the company said that while it is eager to get the OS to manufacturers, final development work on the new OS has not yet concluded. A spokesperson for the company hinted that the RTM ship date for the OS could fall within the next two weeks.

The MDT is designed to help enterprise-level users deploy the new operating system. The MDT contains tools that standardize installations, verify the availability of compatible drivers, and supports automated deployment. The MDT supports the deployment of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. The toolkit is available at the Microsoft Web site.

For most small organizations and single users, the MDT won’t be of much use. The kit is meant to support a mass rollout of a Windows operating system. Organizations that use a uniform disk image, or that wish to do a complete, simultaneous rollout will get the most use out of the MDT.

The appearance of the MDT is more confirmation that Microsoft will meet its October 22 general availability release date. Although the kit is listed as beta software, enterprise level users will have time to familiarize themselves with the kit as they prepare their rollout plans. Microsoft may be somewhat disappointed by the tepid response that Windows 7 is expected to receive from the enterprise user community.

Most IT directors had no immediate plans to incorporate Windows 7 into their operating environment. Many IT directors cited lack of a compelling reason to upgrade and internal upgrade cycle conflicts as the primary reason for not pursuing an immediate upgrade to Windows 7. Most enterprise level users are expected to migrate to Windows 7 within 18-24 months of the OS’s October release.

Microsoft’s volume licensing program allows those users to load any Microsoft operating sytem they choose, including those that are no longer supported. Microsoft has said that it will drop downgrade installation rights for Windows XP approximately six months after Windows 7 is released.

Most enterprise level IT departments say they prefer Windows XP because it supports a wide range of hardware drivers and is exceptionally stable in a networked environment. Since the introduction of Windows Vista, the company has encountered strong resistance from users to its plans to drop Windows XP.

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