Death of Windows XP

IE 9 recently came out and guess what - it no longer supports Windows XP. Microsoft is using IE9 to push users to stop using Windows XP and migrate to Windows 7 or upcoming 8.

Should you upgrade?

Windows Vista was a disaster - both from a marketing and from a technical viewpoint. It was slower and less stable than Windows XP - while offering little improvement.

With Windows 7, Microsoft understood the mistake they made with Vista and increased and improved the amount of testing done, while improving actual usable features.

So is it time to migrate? I tell our clients that is up to them. If their computer is 4 or 5 years old, we generally recommend not upgrading the computers. Windows 7 is different than Windows XP - it looks and functions differently and the transition cost rarely is justified on an old machine. A new machine is a different story. Since a new machine requires a learning curve, by definition, it makes sense to install Windows 7 on a new machine.

Should the entire company convert?

For companies, we prefer a centralized server - using the server equivalent to Windows 7 - Server 2008 R2. Regardless of the number of PCs in an organization - one or two centralized servers is always easier and cheaper to maintain.