Microsoft Vista in SCS

SCS Computing Facilities is progressing rapidly towards implementing Microsoft Vista as the baseline operating system for hosts deployed within the SCS environment. More than any previous Microsoft operating system, however, Vista requires significant "back-office" development for effective operation and management. This summary represents the situation as of October 2007.

What version of Vista will SCS Facilities support?

Carnegie Mellon University has a licensing agreement with Microsoft for "Windows Vista Enterprise".

What is "Enterprise Edition"? How does it differ from other versions available to consumers?

Vista Enterprise is only available to Microsoft volume-license customers and not for sale to the general public.

Microsoft offers several versions of Vista. In order of capability/complexity, they are: Home, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate. Microsoft calls the version that SCS Computing Facilities will deploy the "premium business and enterprise O/S solution." This package incorporates all features of commercially available versions, except the "Home Media" features of Vista Ultimate. Users who have been investigating new systems that include OEM installations of Vista Business should note that Vista Enterprise is superior in both features and functionality. There are also many advanced technical and management oriented features that are only available in Vista Enterprise. You can find details on the various versions on Microsoft's website.

What are you waiting for? Why isn't Vista being released in the environment?

For compatibility with the SCS and campus environments, Vista requires significant pre-deployment effort in upgrades and modifications. Over the past six months we have developed and implemented key components required for licensing (KMS servers), application support (SQL Server), and deployment (RIS to WDF upgrade). These subsystems are now in place, and further development proceeds to enhance reliability and manageability of the environment and to facilitate supporting additional elements that Microsoft will soon release.

At present, third-party application support poses the greatest challenge to implementing Vista with full baseline application support.

"Full baseline application support" — What does that mean?

Facilities-deployed hosts incorporate a customized operating system and an application suite that the SCS user community requires. Vista currently has several limitations in our environment:

No support for the IPASS remote-access client
The Cisco Systems VPN Client runs only on "clean" Vista installations; it will not run on systems upgraded from Windows XP to Vista
No support for the Oracle Calendar client
Several web-based campus applications remain potentially incompatible with Internet Explorer 7, which is integrated into Vista. Users who access Oracle financial tools via a web browser may encounter limitations, and CMU's Computing Services group, which supports the Oracle applications, continues to evaluate these issues. Affected packages include, but are not limited to:
- Oracle Web Reports
- Oracle Financials PCORA (via Jinitiator)
- Oracle 10g Client

Computing Services' "Vista Status " page summarizes the current situation. For more information on Vista compliance and operation issues related to SCS baseline applications, refer to our Vista baseline page.

That doesn't sound so bad ... are you accepting "beta testers"?

SCS Computing Facilities' preparations for Vista are well past the "beta" stage. Early adopters who have a need for or simply wish to try the system are welcome to request a Vista installation. The SCS configuration runs Windows Vista Enterprise and the SCS baseline application package (with the exceptions noted above). Hosts running facilitized Vista will be built from scratch (no upgrades.)

If I become an early adopter, what can I expect?

Day to day operations (network access, email, printing, etc) will remain the same as under Windows XP. Users should expect to spend some time adjusting to the new Vista interface. Note that, as of this time, backup support for Vista hosts has not been certified. To become an early adopter or to ask questions regarding this effort, contact the SCS HelpDesk, <help@cs.cmu.edu> or x8-4231.

What are the hardware requirements?

Vista's hardware requirements and OS footprint (disk space required for effective operation) are considerably greater than those of Windows XP. Older hosts in the environment may thus be Vista-in compatible due to processor, memory, or hard-disk constraints.