College Vista Upgrade

fluppet

Does anyone know anything about when/how the college will be upgrading computers to Windows Vista?

It said in the Irish Independent today that several Irish organisations including TCD had already tested it, so the upgrade will probably take place over the holiday.

I'd say most of the computers in the PACR will not be able to run it, so will they have to replace most of the computers?

xebec

fluppet wrote:

Does anyone know anything about when/how the college will be upgrading computers to Windows Vista?

It said in the Irish Independent today that several Irish organisations including TCD had already tested it, so the upgrade will probably take place over the holiday.

The testing period for upgrades like this could be very long. Companies (including TCD) are reluctant to rush into installing new operating systems because of compatibility and security fears. Personally, I wouldn't expect to see the Vista upgrade of all PACRs before the summer. The disruption that such an upgrade could cause far outweighs the benefits of installing the software at the moment.

fluppet wrote:

I'd say most of the computers in the PACR will not be able to run it, so will they have to replace most of the computers?

What are you basing this on? The minimum requirements aren't that high!! I'm sure the PACRs are capable of running it, maybe a little slowly though...

Crash

they'll chug, big time. most of the machines have half the ram needed to run nicely, and tbh I ain't using vista unless I can use half the random integration stuff

Sparks

fluppet wrote:

It said in the Irish Independent today that several Irish organisations including TCD had already tested it, so the upgrade will probably take place over the holiday.

I'd be exceptionally shocked if the ISS staff were planning on upgrading something so fundamental as the OS in the middle of the academic year.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

Also I don't see any logical reason to upgrade to Vista, not that I'd put doing something really retarded and counter-productive past the ISS....

Nietzschean

I can't see them upgrading the PCAR rooms until they want to upgrade the h/w , realistically i don't see a vista upgrade on the cards for 12 - 24 months at least. the preformance will decrese , and with SP2 on them the security stuff would be nice but its not as big a problem as it was...

Was at the Croke Park show and tell of Vista on Tuesday (and will be entitled to a free copy of Vista Home Premium... not sure if I'll install it, but hey it was free) and Trinity was mentioned as one of the testing zones for Vista, as Mr. Fluppet mentioned. Was surprised at this myself, but John Murphy was there on screen then telling everyone in the audience.

I'd imagine some of the machines would be changed over during summer 2007.

Andrew 83

When XP came in they changed over the summer as far as I remember. Don't know if that's any indicator or not.

Time Magazine

AFAIK the PACs hardware is replaced every three years on a cycle and thus a third of the comptuers will be upgraded during the summer, presumably to Vista-capable machines. One would expect that the machines replaced this summer at least would be able to hold their own, so 2/3rds of the comps would be capable of running with it. Could be in the Summer, though XP seems to be working well so I wouldn't be put off if they leave it for another year for an integrated approach.

Sparks

Anyone got any idea of what happens to the replaced machines?

fluppet

There's something about sending old computer hardware and storage media to a recycling company on the ISS website, so I contacted them a few weeks ago (hoping I might get my hands on one of the old PCs), but their response was that none of the PCs they send for recycling are salvageable, so I don't know what they do with the ones are that are still working, but are just 'old'.

fluppet

fluppet wrote:

There's something about sending old computer hardware and storage media to a recycling company on the ISS website, so I contacted them a few weeks ago (hoping I might get my hands on one of the old PCs), but their response was that none of the PCs they send for recycling are salvageable, so I don't know what they do with the ones are that are still working, but are just 'old'.

Thought they went to schools and/or places/developing countries which need working computers? Or was that my imagination again...

Thirdfox

When college upgrades to Vista will college network users need to upgrade too (like the XP professional requirement in place now)?

Thirdfox

Thirdfox wrote:

When college upgrades to Vista will college network users need to upgrade too (like the XP professional requirement in place now)?

College still allow Windows 2000, so I'd doubt it.

DemonOfTheFall

Oh god if they upgrade to Vista everything will get sooooo slow..... They can't even get WXP right.

osd

ISS have a policy of waiting a year before rolling out a new OS. At best you're talking MT 2007. Mike Nowlan of ISS certainly said that there will be no new versions of Vista and Office installed this academic year.

Jim_No.6

By law, TCD can't give you computers for free when they're throwing it out. All kinds of things come into play (eg. VAT, waste disposal tax, papers of ownership and the like). It's much less hassle to simply destroy them.

As to giving them to schools etc. while that's easily accomplished on a small scale, the amount of technician-time required usually makes such schemes unfeasible.

Nietzschean

Thirdfox wrote:

When college upgrades to Vista will college network users need to upgrade too (like the XP professional requirement in place now)?

Well XP pro is about the same age as home, its purely due to the fact xp home isn't designed for enterprise level networks, and as such doesn't support joining a domain. Its quite likely(i haven't checked) that a string of vista versions(since there is so many..) will not not be able to do this either...

DemonOfTheFall

Yeah, I think they'll be requiring Vista Business or Ultimate(€400) to get onto the Domain.... Just a little bit steep for domain support if you ask me. At least they don't seem to have gotten any smarter with making sure people pay for it.

Nietzschean

considering the college will require everyone is fully up to date, the windows verification things that they keep bringing out and updating will make using illegal copies within tcd a tad painfull me thinks....

bear in mind the retail price for xp pro is in the region of $270, which vista business isn't due to be far different from...