The UK: "Vista Phails"

I'm pretty sure my old high school would still be using Windows NT 4.0.

It's hard for a lot of schools to upgrade when they have really lousy budgets. Apple does give them an easy option because Apple machines are really really easy and cheap to upgrade. Windows machines are a nightmare at best. With an Apple you can just put in the inexpensive new OS (leopard at $149 or whatever) and hit install, 20 minutes later and it's done - Cheap and easy.

Vista involves what? An OS that costs what $349? A new computer, a reformat, and hours of reconfiguration. You'd have to be freakin' mad do to that for every computer in your education system. I'm glad the UK government has got some decent IT advisor's out there. Though, even still in 5 years time they will probably have "turned" a lot of their hardware over to it I'm sure.

Apple for education all the way! More fun and creative for the kids. I used to love the old Apple IIE's they had in my primary school. SO MUCH FUN! But I have to admit, Doom II on my mates 486 was a little better

Many schools aren't upgrading to Leopard either. Computers used by government agencies rarely experience OS upgrades. In fact, at every (public) school I've seen a new OS comes with new hardware.

at about £125 per machine in primary schools and £75 in secondary schools (like private and public schools in America).

I don't think that's right... and I'm not talking about the cost.

Any help from a fellow Brit. Ouch, Munky, Sabr, Ed, Numberzz!

I think it's a really good idea that schools in the UK are giving it some time before they go for Vista. It's an expensive upgrade and I'd honestly be annoyed if I saw my old school invest thousands in new machines just so they could run Vista, when that money could be better spent building a better playground (not joking either), book, teachers pay...

Also there's the instability issues. I mean would you want you kid working on a machine which you know is going to crash at some point today?

I personally would like to see them wait out another 18 months and then maybe go for it when all the old PCs are close to dead and need an upgrade anyway and hopefully by then Vista is a lot more stable.

I remember, when I lived in the UK, the possibility of all schools moving to open source being discussed.

Alas it never happened.

I remember, when I lived in the UK, the possibility of all schools moving to open source being discussed.

Alas it never happened.

I think a lot of universities also use some form of open source software. But to be honest Microsoft dominates the world with its Windows OS and Office suite. If you come out of school and go to apply for a job and say you don't know how to use Windows and Office but are a wiz for Ubuntu/Opensuse (just for you mate ) and Openoffice there's a likely chance they may look you over. Unfortunately that's just how the world is.

I personally would love open source to become more mainstream as then maybe it's get a little easier for people who aren't too comfortable with terminal, like me, to use.

/off topic discussion

With an Apple you can just put in the inexpensive new OS (leopard at $149 or whatever) and hit install, 20 minutes later and it's done - Cheap and easy.

Leopard on anything under G4 and lower is sloowwwwwwwwwwwww... so slow. You couldn't pay me enough to use Leopard on a G4.

I'm pretty sure my old high school would still be using Windows NT 4.0.

A lot of clients in the refineries where I work are still running NT on their servers (big clients: BP, Exxon, Conoco).

With an Apple you can just put in the inexpensive new OS (leopard at $149 or whatever) and hit install, 20 minutes later and it's done - Cheap and easy.

People seem to forget that Leopard pigs up as many resources as Vista does (try running it with 512MB of RAM ). The only reason you haven't heard much about Leopard performance issues is because Apple forces their customers to buy excessively fast hardware with their bundled computer package (Baseline MBP starts at what, 2.2GHz? Talk about crazy.). This is part of the reason Macs are more expensive: Apple forces the fastest and best (and most expensive!) hardware on customers in order to make sure they keep up their "fast and stable" image.

With current circumstances, the agency that conducted the research said that only 22% of the computers can run Vista with Aero, and only 66% are Windows Vista Capable. Also, if one was to upgrade all educational computers in the UK, it would cost about £175 million(which is about $342 million), at about £125 per machine in primary schools and £75 in secondary schools (like private and public schools in America).

I always love these claims. Studies like this always act like they HAVE to run Vista Ultimate and they HAVE to buy the ultra-expensive $400 retail version and they HAVE to be able to run ALL the eye candy. Is something wrong with the no-eye-candy Vista Basic edition that comes free on every computer being sold? Or is the Home Premium OEM Upgrade from Basic that Dell charges a measly $20 for not good enough for you? Do you REQUIRE the most expensive edition? Something wrong with OEM and Upgrade Editions? And Lord forbid we quote volume license prices instead of the inflated retail prices!

Another rant about Vista... move along, people...

I don't think that's right... and I'm not talking about the cost.

Any help from a fellow Brit. Ouch, Munky, Sabr, Ed, Numberzz!

I live in America if you didn't get the hint that I don't know what you are talking about! But what are you talking about? Are you talking about like grade level or age? Like

I live in America if you didn't get the hint that I don't know what you are talking about! But what are you talking about? Are you talking about like grade level or age? Like

 

You are comparing British primary and secondary schools with American private and public schools. That is not correct.

(I believe that is what Mebster means)

I live in America if you didn't get the hint that I don't know what you are talking about! But what are you talking about? Are you talking about like grade level or age? Like <13 are in primary or secondary or what?

You are comparing British primary and secondary schools with American private and public schools. That is not correct.

(I believe that is what Mebster means)

Primary School: Reception (Year 0) to Year 6 - Age 4 to 11 [can be further Infant school (Yr0 - Yr2) and Junior school (Yr3 - Yr6)]

Secondary School: Year 7 to Year 11 - Age 12 to 16

These can both be public schools or private schools!

And InorganicMatter, interesting point at the end

I thought nothing ca be worst than Vista, but yesterday I knew Office 2007 for the first time, oh dear!

Vista involves what? An OS that costs what $349? A new computer, a reformat, and hours of reconfiguration. You'd have to be freakin' mad do to that for every computer in your education system.

Yes, you would have to be mad to do that, which is why we didn't do it that way! I used to work as an IT tech in a school here in Australia. We would set up the OS as we wanted, configure everything necessary, install antivirus and whatnot, then use Ghost to save and deploy the image across the school (we did this with 2k and XP, we weren't quite ready for Vista at the time I left). We installed other software (apps) using AD Group Policy and later SMS 2003 (Systems Management Server).

Even if we had decided to trial Vista, eg. in one lab, we could have reverted the workstations to XP easily enough just by keeping the Ghost image. And the workstation hard disks did not contain any user data - that's what servers and home folders were for.

For us, licensing costs weren't an issue, as our State Education Department held a Microsoft Select agreement and we were covered for Windows upgrade licences for workstation OS's. A year or two ago, we just got XP Home Edition OEM licences with new PCs, but we installed XP Pro on them.

Final point: even with Macs and OS X, a clean install may still be preferable to an "upgrade" - sure, there are lots of differences between Windows, OS X, various Linux distros and whatever else you care to name, however some common concepts still remain.

It was a joke Numberzz. As in I know you're not British and so would have no idea and hence silly of me to call you. That added to the fact I'm calling you to correct your own error is clearly me not being serious.

 

Exactly.

Primary School: Reception (Year 0) to Year 6 - Age 4 to 11 [can be further Infant school (Yr0 - Yr2) and Junior school (Yr3 - Yr6)]

Secondary School: Year 7 to Year 11 - Age 12 to 16

 

These can both be public schools or private schools!

And InorganicMatter, interesting point at the end

Hailing From England i can confirm that!

Also, if one was to upgrade all educational computers in the UK, it would cost about £175 million(which is about $342 million), at about £125 per machine in primary schools and £75 in secondary schools (like private and public schools in America). If only 66% of the computers are capable, that means that there would be two OS's running, which is never good.

Woah, hold on there Numberzz.

Primary and Secondary Schools != Private and Public schools.

In Scotland, Primary schools are age 5 - 12 and Secondry schools are 12 - 16 (up to 18 optional)

In both cases, either schools can be public or private (state or public, as they call it in England)

EDIT: I guess I was so keen to put Numberzz down as wrong there I didn't read the posts above me

In my school (a secondary school), most the PCs have 1.8ghz Celerons with 256mb RAM, 30GB hard drives and integrated graphics. One or two of the laptops are (only just) Vista capable though...

This is probably because the school has some god awful contract with Fujistu...

Woah, hold on there Numberzz.

 

Primary and Secondary Schools != Private and Public schools.

 

In Scotland, Primary schools are age 5 - 12 and Secondry schools are 12 - 16 (up to 18 optional)

 

In both cases, either schools can be public or private (state or public, as they call it in England)

 

EDIT: I guess I was so keen to put Numberzz down as wrong there I didn't read the posts above me

In my school (a secondary school), most the PCs have 1.8ghz Celerons with 256mb RAM, 30GB hard drives and integrated graphics. One or two of the laptops are (only just) Vista capable though...

This is probably because the school has some god awful contract with Fujistu...

On the flip side, you must be on drugs if you want to run Leopard on a 1.8ghz G4, 256MB ram, 30GB HDD, etc.

Considering Leopard takes 1/3 of that HDD space, anyways.

Yeah, yeah I fixed it... Sorry for not knowing how to speak British.

It really doesn't surprise me that it would cost so much for school's here in the UK to upgrade their computer's. I remember how long Acorn computers hung around for in schools... it was pretty awful and well behind the standards at the time, it must of cost a lot during that upgrade.

Britain never really puts enough emphasis on computer and technology programs in school. It's not until you get out of school and into College and University that you are able to use the better software and hardware. But even then you can't always be promised top of the line software and hardware in some area's.

Of course there are a hand full of schools that are specialist in specific subjects, so a lot of money gets put into technologies that they require (if they need it).

I'm pretty sure my old high school would still be using Windows NT 4.0.

 

I'm glad the UK government has got some decent IT advisor's out there.

Are you kidding?

The UK "HAD" the best native UK developped hardware and software platform (AKA RISC OS from former Acorn Computers Ltd.) instead of supporting it, they ditched it like a brick the moment M$ walked in with heavy discounted Windows and office products.

That now defunct UK system had great multitasking, was VERY userfriendly and not to mention VERY fast considering most processors ran at moderate speeds. These systems where considerable faster then PC and Mac's from that era. The last Acorn model had around 1997 a 233MHz Digital StrongARM processor increasing it's performance by TEN-fold (x10) with just a plug-in processor upgrade compared to the former model with ARM710. These cards were already available earlier for older non-StrongARM equipped Risc PC's together with an upgrade to it's ROM-based OS for the unbelievable small sum of about 250 UKP (VAT incl.).

The most ridiculous fact about this switch to PC's in the UK in the late 90's was that at that time there was a vast amount of high quality RISC OS software available for both educational- and special needs-market. This ofcourse needed to be transformed into PC packages once the switch was made. Needles to say that such a feat is a huge waste of public money! And yet NO ONE ever mentions this or asked the leading IT-managers back then about those decisions.

And now you say that UK goverment has decent IT advisors?

You have no idea what you're talking about. The UK goverment is as hypocrite as any other goverment. They had ALL the playing cards in their hands: UK invented, UK manufactured, high performance topclass hard- and software and they destroyed it instead of embracing their technology. In fact the UK lost ALL it's technological advancements from the past wether it'll be cars or computers.

Don't get me wrong. I feel as much pissed off to the UK goverment as to the European Union who also played the Microsoft game instead of preserving native European technology.

And finaly now, there's this. Another proprietary US originated OS used on crappy made-in-china-junk hardware sold at premium prices. Yeah, excactly what we've been waiting for. Oh dear.

EPDM

Yeah, yeah I fixed it... Sorry for not knowing how to speak British.

It isn't your British speaking that was wrong. It's was your weird understanding. We forgive you.

@agent-squirrel, thanks for confirming it. Even though I'm a Brit I sometimes get mixed up.

And Paranoid Marvin, nice to see you jump in there also.

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I know in the UK we have loads of old PCs but I wouldn't have thought that many needed too much upgrading to meet Vista Homes minimum requirement:

Apple does give them an easy option because Apple machines are really really easy and cheap to upgrade. Windows machines are a nightmare at best.

Yeaaaah! so for all the public school operating windows machines (99+%) all they have to do is pay 2000+ $ for a mac and all the necessary software. multiply that by 100.... wow! that's almost too affordable!

The reality is schools are usually stuck with what they got when they opened, or upgraded to some hand-me-down computers. Which all run windows. And the admins are too icompetent/unmotivated to switch to linux.

Yeaaaah! so for all the public school operating windows machines (99+%) all they have to do is pay 2000+ $ for a mac and all the necessary software. multiply that by 100.... wow! that's almost too affordable!

 

The reality is schools are usually stuck with what they got when they opened, or upgraded to some hand-me-down computers. Which all run windows. And the admins are too icompetent/unmotivated to switch to linux.

i dont think it s incompetency, it is bcoz they are not trained/experienced in linux... going the linux path is good but w/o enough knowledge systems can go down the well too well quickly too much manual configuration is needed when stgs goes wrong...

i dont understand why would they want to switch to vista either... is there a rule u need to switch to all new system comes up... xp is already good enough... for schools, even 98/me would be fine i think... expecially old hardwares are less likely to be stressed...

also if u see vista's specs, and real usage of hdd space, u will understand how 20gb is soooo not enough either...10 gb is already system comes out... 1-2 gb for virtual/hiber files... not to mention auto back up.... in 2-3 days most system would give warning of low space...

linux would be the best choice for schools however school admins would need to be trained for it unless they hire another person with linux certified... that would be the cheapest and best option....

XP is really stable, and does what you (or the school) wants it to do. There's simply no incentive to switch to anything else, really.

XP is really stable, and does what you (or the school) wants it to do. There's simply no incentive to switch to anything else, really.

By that logic, I guess I was a fool for upgrading to Leopard.

Let's see how far that comment flies here...

By that logic, I guess I was a fool for upgrading to Leopard.

 

Let's see how far that comment flies here...

There is a difference between a school use compy and a non-school use one. Average students don't care; they still get to the same internet.

And Leopard is actually faster that Tiger...

Why would a school pay that much money for slower performance and (in that case) unnecessary upgrades?

What they need is better admins that would use linux. Although xp is definitely the most standardized.