anyone running windows 8.1 in a corporate environment?

I'm trying to figure out what surprises I'll have in store. Few hundred workstations,are making the jump from XP to 8.1 in the first phase :hi2:

 

A couple of my colleagues are. I haven't actually heard many complaints from them about using it on physical hardware - fewer than from people I know running it in a non-corporate environment. Windows Server 2012 via Remote Desktop was a bit of a pain compared to 2008 R2, with there not being a logoff button and the Charms bar showing up all the time, but from a workstation standpoint, they seem fairly happy. Although I should note that I work with developers, so these colleagues are generally fairly adept at solving their problems.

I have Windows 7 on my work computer and 98% of the time I use remote desktop it's to a Server 2008 R2 computer (the remaining 2% being split between 2003 and 2012), so my own experience with 8/8.1 in a corporate environment is minimal.

 

I use Win 8.1 at work, but on a machine that is not joined to the domain or managed in any way by the company. All the other company computers are running 7.

I would expect you'll have as much hassle training the users as troubleshooting, if you're jumping from XP to 8.

 

I'm not trying to start an OS war here but why not:

a) Migrate to W7 which is more palatable to majority of XP users in my experience or

b) Wait for final release of W10 if you must have "the latest and greatest" ?

 

Most likely not since it is all Microsoft anyway you look at it.

Actually that is where they are flocking to after the Windows 8 debacle. Microsoft did it to themselves no one had to do it.

We would like to think that but until we get a RC close to Final....that is wishful thinking for anyone that went through Windows 8 debacle.

 

I'm in the same boat as I think win7 is a much sensible move. I've got higher sources who think the extended support of win7 ending in Jan 2020 is too near and they don't want to do this again since there are many satellite offices and it's a pain since some of those don't have dedicated IT at each location. Most of our stuff is taken care of remotely but this obviously can't be. There are many legacy devices that I'm sure will make things interesting.

 

We are actually going from Win7 Pro to Win8.1 Pro in a (very) gradual laptop refresh process. The core reason is to get BitLocker, as Win7 Pro doesn't have it. We're also running into issues with DPI, as some of our departments are moving to 4K monitors and Win7 is just not working as nice as we'd like on them.

We haven't run into any shop stoppers, some departments are still testing apps but I work for a fairly new and nimble company with virtually no "legacy" requirements. Our users are also less whiny than most about new things, apparently. The response so far has been neutral to positive.