So we’re finally upgrading to XP at my office- except that we’re not upgrading. They’re going to wipe my machine and install XP fresh. Of course they’ll save all of my data, but configuration is up to me. This means at lest a few days of downtime as I reconfigure all of my compliers, version control, components, etc. and even then unless I go back and test every application I’ve built in the last year I can’t be certain I’ve gotten my environment set back up properly. So I’m pretty steamed at the moment. I’ve finally got some work to do after months of inactivity, and now I’m going to have to stop and start re-installing software!

So my question is this: is this a standard thing in a large operation or is this as unreasonable as it feels? At my last job we were a small company and no one would think of suspending productivity so we could wipe our hard drives and put on a new OS.

I’m being told that 2000->XP causes problems without a fresh install. So perhaps I’m boiling over for no reason, perhaps I live in a fantasy world where you shouldn’t have to ever re-configure every piece of software that you use on a daily basis.

Maybe you could ask them to delay so that you can do your work and have them come back when you have some free time?

I wish. Deadline is October 1st. I still don't know exactly whent it's going to happen, but it'll be soon.

The funny thing is that when I first heard they were going to upgrade out machines I told them to come and do mine as I wasn't doing anything important and the delay wouldn't hurt me. (though I didn't know about the "wipe your hard drive" method at that point). They said the weren't doing lap tops yet so I had to wait. Nice.

So my question is this: is this a standard thing in a large operation or is this as unreasonable as it feels?

Technically, I suppose I support "mid-sized" rather than "large", but we definately wipe rather than "upgrade" an OS. There are too many weird (i before e...?) things installed on computers that don't upgrade cleanly, and we spend way too much time as it is trying to chase them down under normal circumstances.

We'd much rather have a "clean" starting point moving forward, and hope that the users won't install as much junk this time (or, perhaps, they'll install "new and improved" junk ). We're in the event management business, and can't really lock down the computer as the last minute, show-must-go-on stuff takes precedence.

-jk

I would never upgrade over any Windows system. You're asking for trouble really as Microsoft usually have made lots of changes between the versions which will come back to haunt you. XP changed the USB stack as an example so you'd need to go and find new drivers for any USB devices you've got.

I agree that it's annoying having to redo all of your configuration and check that everything works but it will be much more stable. I always find that I end up with a leaner configuration as well as I don't install the applications or drivers for things I no longer want or need.

I can't remember exactly what your company does, but where I work we are constantly reimaging machines. Whether we're migrating OS or even if they just have a problem. For most users this isn't a problem since they save nearly everything to the network as opposed to the hard drive. Add to that the fact that no one outside of IT has the rights to install ANY program and everything runs pretty smoothly. Where we run into problems is within our department (where you would most definitely fit). However the IT makes up such a small part of the company as a whole, its viewed as a small price to pay for the benefits.

Well I guess I'm seeing that re-imaging really is the way to go. Still doesn't make me like it

I can't remember exactly what your company does, but where I work we are constantly reimaging machines. Whether we're migrating OS or even if they just have a problem. For most users this isn't a problem since they save nearly everything to the network as opposed to the hard drive.

I'm a programmer working for the governement as a contractor. The big problem with what I do is that I have a TON of third party libraries, components, etc. that are all necessary for various applications that I have to build. My "data" (source code) is all archived, of course, so it will be no big thing to simply get it all from the network. Install all of the third party software necessary for my job is another thing alltogether.

Add to that the fact that no one outside of IT has the rights to install ANY program and everything runs pretty smoothly.

In fact we just had a bout with our IT security people who were going to use sms to uninstall anything that they didn't know what it was. This would have been disasterous as I have so much stuff on my machine that they don't a clue about (all legally purchased by the contract and necessary for my work).

The only non-registered thing I have on my machine is a small program called "empload" I figure if they kill that then I'll be OK. Sometimes I just need to restructure a playlist while I'm working!

Add to that the fact that no one outside of IT has the rights to install ANY program and everything runs pretty smoothly.

Why not strip-search employees on the way out every day?

So my question is this: is this a standard thing in a large operation or is this as unreasonable as it feels?

I think that depends on the business. The machines in my dad's office don't get OS "upgrades". They get wiped. Since the average user in the 17-person office does nothing more than desktop publishing and email/calendar stuff in Groupwise, there is no downtime at all. All the user's files are stored on a main fileserver, and the email and calendar data have their own server as well.

So when we get new machines in the office and are migrating to a new OS, we merely set up a machine with everything our average user needs, and ghost it to 16 other disks. Then we install specific software (databases, graphics programs, etc) as needed.

Typically our users, despite being hopeless when it comes to computers, are inconvenienced for about 10 minutes while we change boxes.

So my question is this: is this a standard thing in a large operation or is this as unreasonable as it feels?

It's a standard thing. Our company is trying to do it, too.

Although they're being a bit more realistic about timing, and letting us software development folks keep certain machines around on the older OS's if we say we need it for whatever software-development reasons we can come up with.

I'm not sure the reason they're doing it. I think it's licensing... i.e., bulk licenses for XP are being purchased from MS. But that would imply that their prior licenses for the older OS's were somehow time-limited or made invalid by the XP purchase. I didn't know they could do that?

What about dual booting? Carve out a small section of hard drive and put XP on it, then dual boot. When you want 2000, you got it. When you want to show that you complied with the XP request, you can.

That, or swap hard drives for a few days until they leave you alone.

Compaq did have a mandatory 2000 upgrade, but it was done in such a way to avoid problems. This was done with a combination of tools built to migrate people over to the new OS from previous Windows versions.

XP migrations wern't mandatory. I did an upgrade from the corporate files, and it worked rather well, since 2000 and XP are very similar under the hood. New PCs rolled out in the refresh program run XP.