When do you expect the libraries, schools,...update to Windows 7?

The public libraries and universities where I sometimes use computers all still have Windows XP. When do you think most of them will have Windows 7?

 

By the time Windows 8 is released.

 

That depend on the school. The rich one will probably have it by the time you do. On the other hand, the libraries and poor community colleges might not get it until W8 is about to be introduced. The community school in my city just got Vista last year. But many labs are still using XP.

 

A bit too optimistic.

I'd say a good 5 years from now. By then the PSUs will have busted.

 

Actually, I am not sure. But my school are on Vista since 2008. I think they won't change it meanwhile. Probably, they will change to Windows 7 when they buy new computers and put into the new labs. If there's no new labs, then, no new computers and no Windows 7. LOL. In addition, changing the whole school computers into Windows 7 is not an easy job. Too much things need to handle especially vital programs and urgent/top secret files.

 

My school is still on XP.

And they say they aren't going to upgrade until support for XP goes in 2011.

 

lol, most of my university is still running windows 2000. some are stil using windows 98 but thats because they have specialist forensic software on them that costs upwards of 10k per licence and is non transferable.

i think they will be more willing to upgrade to 7 than they were to upgrade to vista, but xp is still so reliable i doubt they will do xp to 7 for a while. plus they would have to do a complete reconfig on their servers, shared/community drives and user policy settings. the only thing vista and 7 make easier than previous versions is wireless networking. since most educcational machines are wired, its not worth the cost and effort really.

 

We will be on XP until our support staff retires. I don't think our IT plans on ever learning another OS.

 

At my school all terminals are virtualized, we threw out our old-fashioned PCs this year and moved entirely to a thin-client model. These systems are running XP, but according to our IT, Windows 7 is FAR better at being deployed thin-client style than XP and we will most likely have the entire environment running Windows 7 by January 2010. Older PCs deployed into individual offices may take a few more months/years before they will see an upgrade.

This is really only possible because the virtualization model allows us to rapidly test and deploy Windows 7 without installing the OS on every machine around campus.

 

Public libraries and schools - when some kind soul donates new computers.

 

Now that I think about it, my college has a huge computer lab with at least 60 computers, and probably more (including a few 24 inch Macs). Al the Windows Based PC's run XP Pro up to Vista Enterprise, and they run Aero, too.

I should go ask when they're going to update the Vista computers.

 

For libraries, probably whenever it becomes more expensive to maintain their current computers than to buy new ones. The libraries in my hometown consistently get high ratings, but their computer technology is by no means new. It's not the focus of their budget, nor should it be.

For universities, it really depends. I go to a private university with $40,000+ cost of attendance if you don't get scholarships/need-based aid. It gives faculty the choice of whether they want to use XP, Vista, or Mac OS, and also allows them to use XP + a remote connection to Linux or Solaris if they prefer. But they deploy XP on all the public Windows PC's, as well as some of the Macs (dual-boot there). I don't know if there are definite Vista 32-bit compatibility issues or not, but there are at least a few 64-bit compatibility issues, and I've never heard anyone complain about XP being on all the public (lab/library/etc.) Windows PCs. On the other hand, I know Coppin State, a public university in Baltimore, has Vista 64-bit deployed, and at least a good number of Core 2 Quads as well, with low-end nVIDIA discrete graphics to boot. And that's in a standard, nonspecialized lab. So you can't divide it up entirely into rich school/poor school.

I wouldn't be surprised if my university upgraded to Windows 7 by next year - all but a few specialized PC's that mostly run Win2K anyways could run Windows 7 - but neither would I be surprised if it stayed with XP.

As for public pre-university schools, the situation is probably similar to public libraries. My high school was gradually switching to thin clients because of lower maintenance costs, but when I graduated in 2007, the vast majority of PC's were still running Windows 2000, and they were preferred over the thin clients running nonlocal XP/2K3 because, being full-blown systems, they were faster. Even worse, all of the Macs were running OS 9.22, despite being known for absolutely atrocious performance and lots of bomb messages (crashes). But there wasn't money to upgrade them. A few specialized computers had XP, but they were the distinct minority.

 

I don't think they need new computers. Hell, my school mostly runs computers with Core 2 Duo E8400 3Ghz processors, 4GB RAM, and 9400 GT's. I'd say that most schools and libraries have that as an average computer, and they would run Windows 7 easy.

 

Even if the hardware can handle Windows 7, with the current economy, I don't think any of the IT guys are thinking about spending millions of taxpayer dollars getting new licenses/seats just to run Windows 7. Those XP machines will be there to stay until they break down and have to be replaced or there's enough funding to buy new computers. At least, I'm relatively sure that'll be the case for LA City public libraries and LAUSD.