DOT, NIST Ban Windows Vista

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

I’ve been writing (whining?) about my Windows Vista upgrade process, which has come to a halt because I’ve been busy installing and uninstalling Draft-N wireless in my home. Perhaps I need to take the approach of the DOT and NIST, who have banned the upgrade, at least for now.

“We are temporarily not permitting computers with the Vista operating system to be connected to our networks,” Michael Baum, a NIST spokesman, said Tuesday. The organization’s technology staff is testing NIST applications and evaluating the security in Windows Vista. The same holds true for Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007, he said. Source: News.com

We Say: Honestly, it’s not all that unusual, as large organizations, whether they be government or business, usually take a long time to test new software releases before rolling them out to employees (remember XP SP2?) … but I’m sure it’s not welcomed by Microsoft. In our business, we have to test Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 with our product, so we don’t have much choice except to upgrade to those, but for IE7 and Vista … off-limits for now.