So who's using Win8 in a corporate environment?

zoomee said:
Its a PITA!!
Whilst all laptops are setup with Win 7 as standard, unfortunately finding a Tablet these days with Win7 (and associated drivers) is a right mare!
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Why would you even want a tablet with win7 on?! The Dell tablets i've had exposure to or worse than any problems I've encountered with 8!
 
Moeks said:
I don't think there is any doubt that there is some good technology in it and it is a good system, the issue is that a lot of people don't like the interface very much (specifically the start screen and hot corners rather than a start menu with a button) ...it's not a matter of them adapting and 'getting with it' so to speak, Microsoft are trying tor force people, a lot of people, down a path they do not want to go ...at least not quite in the way Microsoft wants. fact is, Windows 8 is very unfamiliar to a lot of people and people do like familiarity.


It is also an expensive proposition for many, as it requires staff be 'familiarised' with it, in other words, sent on a training course. Not technical staff so much, but the ordinary users.
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While i cant speak for everyone the only people i've come across that are resistive to the interfaces are IT folk just to unwilling to adjust. Actual workflow has changed very little between win7 / win8.

Once you've cut all the crap from the default start screen (who would want all that in a corporate environment!?) and created a template start screen with the apps you want your users to see/use. The install then becomes very tailored to the user, no longer a menu full of little apps that they have no use for or no idea on what it does. All the programs they need are right there in front of them.

DA does away with any rubbish VPN, (cisco i'm looking at you!) and also takes away that extra layer for a user to navigate. Its also unbelievably easy to set-up these days! If you also lucky enough to have TPM chips in your laptops then you can also do away with any token keys. Why would anyone not want that!
 
Considering I have only just in the last month been upgraded to Win 7 on my office machine and that everyone else on my team is still on Win XP I think it's safe to say I wont be seeing Win 8 for a while yet :)
 
paradigm said:
No, you got that wrong. Windows 8 is fine for corporate use, in fact, it behaves in the same way as Windows 7 for the most part.



No idea what you are even talking about. Any Windows 7 software will run on 8. If you are looking for Modern UI apps to publish across your AD, then we write our own appx's and publish with SCCM.



Yes it does :confused:



SCCM pushes out Forefront Endpoint Protection no problems at all.



New VPN client from which provider? We run the same version of Cisco AnyConnect across 7 and 8, even if we didn't, the ASA5512's take care of that and upgrade the clients on connect (or via the web portal).



My thoughts exactly.



You really should be running System Center 2012 SP1 anyway, 2012 was full of random holes and bugs. R2 is beautiful, but I'd understand why upgrading to R2 is a bit more of a faff.



No, it's not. But any IT administrator worth his salt can schedule a project to upgrade System Center in a relatively quick timeframe. It's not as if SP1 hasn't been out for donkeys years anyway, and it's not as if Windows 8 snuck upon you overnight!



x64 drivers for Windows 7 will run on Windows 8 x64, and x86 drivers for Windows 7 will run on Windows 8 x86. No idea why you'd think any different? :confused:

Seems like a lot of negativity there against Windows 8, when in fact, the actual problem appears to be the mentality of the IT department.
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Your post has a lot of truth to it but also some omissions or oversights. "Works" and "is supported" are worlds apart. Casually rolling out new versions of SCCM depends on how big your SCCM deployment is. We have upwards of 60 DPs and it all must work all day every day.

You could probably reasonably casually get win8 rolled out with minimal problems at a 100 user company but at the scale of some posters here? No chance. Windows 8 won't be hitting the desktop en masse where I work for years. We've actually stopped deploying server 2012 while we work with Microsoft on some repeatable test case showstopper bugs in our environment. When you have 4,000 servers and churn 200 a month, these things matter.
 
Only on tablets thus far. Still eradicating the last few XP machines in the offices for W7. W8 may come in a few years time I guess.
 
A few of our clients have rolled out Windows 8 on the basis that the technology behind Windows 8 is now considered mature enough, plus they were running on Windows 2000, 2003 and XP clients so it's a massive upgrade for them.

We meanwhile have them as our dev boxes and virtual machines running from our Windows 7 desktops. I don't think we'll roll out Windows 8 to be honest, definitely the next version of Windows.

There has been some massive pains with our cloud systems with their legacy stuff (legacy applications and web Active X nightmares) but apart from that it has been relatively stable apart from less serious "how do I do this?" calls.

It's been positive but they still rely heavily on Active X applications which REQUIRE Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6. It's really holding back adoption.
 
Server 2012 is very good, and personally is something all businesses should be considering, but personally unless you have a lot of redundancy I would be much more inclined to bring up a 2012 server along side the existing servers rather than doing an in place upgrade.

Windows 8 really isn't anywhere near as bad as people make out, in fact it is really reliable, but the start screen is the issue in an enterprise environment, due to user re-training/education being required.

If you are doing a massive core upgrade from server 2003/2008 and windows xp to server 2012 then windows 8 (or even better 8.1) is the way to go. If you already have some windows 7 desktops then maybe windows 7 will be easier.

Anyhow, just saying no and that windows 8 is rubbish is not the attitude a forward thinking IT admin should have. I am well aware and understand that in some companies the scale/complexity of the change currently isn't feasible, but it is something that needs to be considered with windows xp nearing end of extended support.
 
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