Microsoft introduced the latest version of its operating system in grand fashion, with parties at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and other tony venues and the ever-present theme, “The ‘wow’ starts now.” But for many agencies the wow will come later rather than now.
At least two federal agencies have put an indefinite hold on moving to the Vista operating system, and others have set a cautious timetable for bringing Vista into their offices.
The early response to Vista suggests that the federal government could be slow to adopt the new operating system, even though it has been six years since Microsoft introduced a new version of Windows for desktop and laptop PCs.
The Interior Department put itself on a growing list of agencies, including the Army and the Transportation Department, that say they must develop implementation policies and complete their testing of Vista before abandoning Windows XP or older versions of Windows that already work in their information technology environments.
A draft memo obtained by Federal Computer Week indicates that Interior officials are considering telling bureau chief information officers and other IT managers that they should restrict their use of the Windows Vista operating system to testing in controlled, off-line environments. However, the memo also states that the department should begin preparing for its eventual deployment.
Interior is likely to require that newly purchased desktop and laptop PCs that are Vista-ready meet minimum operating system requirements and that any PCs with Vista already installed not be connected to the network.
DOT sent a similar memo to its bureaus earlier this month in which it placed a moratorium on using Vista, Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7. The memo was first reported by Information Week March 2.
The memo cites the lack of a “compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products.” It goes on to state that “furthermore, there seem to be specific reasons not to upgrade.”
The Army is complying with a policy issued in a Defense Department memo that asks service members to avoid upgrading to Vista until the Air Force can finish analyzing how the operating systems will work with the Army’s standard PC configuration.
“We are expecting the Army’s Small Computer Program office to implement it as early as August,” said Kevin Carroll, who leads the service’s Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems. “We will get a gold master copy from Microsoft, and we will give it to our manufacturers to test for us as well.”
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