IU computers will have new Windows Vista by '08

Computers on the IU campus will likely be updated in 2008 to Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista.\nThe operating system is the successor to Windows XP and was released Tuesday.\nThe decision to move to Vista will be left to the owners of the IU machines, said Sue Workman, director of user support for University Information Technology Services at IU.\nWorkman said that according to the manager of the Student Technology Center, the UITS Student Technology Centers will likely be upgraded by the summer of 2008.\nUITS Student Technology Centers include the Information Commons machines in the Herman B Wells Library.\nThe University will not be charged by Microsoft if it chooses to update the computers. Upgrade licenses are included in IU's enterprise Microsoft agreement, and there is no additional licensing cost to IU to upgrade existing Windows licenses to Vista, Workman said in an e-mail interview.\nWhile the University will not be charged for upgrading to Vista, entire computers may need to be replaced to do this.\n"Perhaps they will need to be replaced if the hardware is not beefy enough to run Vista ," Workman said.\nVista hardware requirements are listed in a UITS Knowledge Base article at http://kb.iu.edu/data/auhq.html.\nSince the software is part of IU's Microsoft agreement, students, faculty and staff can expect the software to be available for a low cost, Workman said. However, she said an exact price has not been set, as IU waits to see what the cost of the operating system will be for the University.\nWindows XP Professional is available to students at the IU Bookstore for $10. Vista will be sold for a similar price, Workman said.\nTwo versions of Vista -- Enterprise and Ultimate -- will be available. For those who already own a copy of Windows, Amazon.com sells the Ultimate-brand upgrade version for $250.\n"This is a substantial savings for personal purchases," Workman said.\nIU junior Josh Falcon said he sees IU updating its machines to Vista as a forced expense to students.\n"I think I'll buy it just to make things easier," Falcon said. "If my computer is outdated compared to IU's computers, it will make things difficult."\nFalcon said he can foresee potential problems for IU students with some online programs.\nOne current problem for those who update their systems is that there are many software packages not compatible with Vista.\n"Textbook vendors sometimes include accompanying CDs that are operating-system- and application-version-dependent," Workman said.\nIU negotiates its enterprise agreements to benefit the institution, Workman said. They try to extend those benefits to faculty, staff and students.\n"This is a case where literally the institution and our faculty, staff and students will save literally millions of dollars," Workman said.\nMore information can be found at the UITS Knowledge Base, http://kb.iu.edu, and on the UITS Web site, http://uits.iu.edu.