Good morning. I just wanted to bring you up to speed on a few Microsoft items. In previous blog posts, I speculated that even though Microsoft was saying 1st quarter 2010 for Windows 7, I thought they'd have it out by year's end. I also said that when released, it was my bet Microsoft would no longer sell Windows XP. It appears I am 1 for 2!
Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will be released 10/22/09, but they will continue offering the downgrade license to Windows XP until 2011. This is mostly due to large corporate environments not being ready to deploy Windows 7 just yet. While I don't have confirmation, I believe Dell will continue to give us the option to buy a computer preloaded with XP, however once Windows 7 is released Anchor will no longer be advising clients do so. In our testing, Windows 7 has been terrific. There are no real bells and whistles here, just better security under the hood and better peformance and reliability than Vista!
Should you need to purchase new computers this fall, we'll recommend Windows 7 but of course give you the option of selecting XP as long as it is available. Before selecting Windows 7 as your operating system, it will be imperative you check to ensure all applications you are using are compatible. For example, if you are using anything older than Quickbooks 2007, you would need to upgrade that as well, so XP might still be your choice in this scenario.
On another note, are you ready for Office 2010? Candidly, I'm not.....and I don't think many of our clients are. We're all still adjusting to Office 2007, and we have many clients on Office 2003 still. I just wanted you to be aware we will see it about this time next year. For clients who have Office licensing with Software Assurance from Microsoft, you will get this upgrade for free. For those of you who do not, there is the potential of having 3 different flavors of Office on your network, so you may want to consider standardizing next year.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!
An informational blog for the clients and associates of Anchor Network Solutions, Inc.
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