DrugBuyers.Com: Lot's of XP Info

I ran WinME for a year - never had any problems.

There's a bit of a catch 22 here. In order to bring these WinXP security issues to light (which make up the majority of the WinXP updates) WinXP would have to be released to the general public. Otherwise these security holes probably wouldn't appear via standard beta testing. Like the professional athlete whose performance is bolstered by improved competition, security holes are only brought to light by those who actively try to exploit them - hackers are bad in the short term but good in the long term. Although they will continually maintain the upper hand in the short term it is through their actions that networks are able to continually improve security precautions.

Most Fortune 500 companies also standardize on the exact same software (apps + OS), by department, for every computer on the network - likewise for hardware, as possible. Rarely, if ever, are employees allowed to load any non-standard software on their work PCs. This makes tech support much easier because settings are all standardized by department.

As the director of your company network you have the ultimate say over company-wide policy (or at least the influence to ultimately determine such a policy). Standardize - pick an OS that works, per department, and adopt standards! Depending upon the budget for your company's networking department, legacy hardware is scary (i'm sure you well understand that) and should be eliminated whenver possible. Unless you have highly specialized CAD hardware or customized manufacturing equipment controlled by legacy software most other hardware issues can be easily rectified cheaply and effectively.

Legacy software is unfortunate but waning - even the most customized software-only developers (such as custom VB apps or dos-based software with pointedly specific applications) are conscious of emerging OS compatibility and technologies. Site-licenses can be expensive but isn't a loss of data even more costly?

Every computer should be running the exact same OS with the exact same software installed in the exact same directories with the exact same specifications and the exact same file-naming conventions. In effect, you want to be able to backup minimum directory hierarchies (saving space and making things easier unless all clients are reading and saving from servers) and "ghost" reinstall if problems arise. But ghost reinstallations often require standardized hardware as well.... is your network hardware standardized or comprised of piecemeal hardware thrown together? I've been there.

Do you have seperate servers for each department that are interconnected? Standard shared client-side folders? A server bank in a central location? RAID support? Tape backups? UPS systems per workstation? Surge protection per workstation? SOP's for all employees who access computers? (I wrote the SOP for my company - hardest thing I've ever done. I'd rather give birth through my penis.)

How many techs work beneath you for individual corporate support? How much easier would their job be if your network conformed to centralized standards?

The only computers that should be exempt from SOP conventions are non-client-side servers and those computers with currently unresolvable legacy issues. Everything else should use the lowest common denominator that retains useful functionality. Like I said before, in many fortune 500 companies this remains windows 95!!!! Alcatel - Windows 95!!

I'm asking these questions not only because I'm personally interested in your situation but also to let non-corporate computer users in on the the kinds of issues confronting a network administrator. I am not questioning your intrinsic knowledge of your own network - these are clearly basic principles understood by all netadmins.

Read about Ernie Ball today in Usatoday? They were hammered by Microsoft by installing single-source OS's on all company computers rather than purchasing a site-license. They have since moved to open-source linux and have saved mucho dinero. Unfortunately it takes a lot to influence corporate to move to an OS that is relatively unfamiliar to most users. A GUI interface like RedHat can fix most user interface issues but .... geez. I could go on forever.

So many options!!!