Windows Vista Deployment on Hold

Windows Vista, the current computer operating system from Microsoft, will not be deployed throughout UW-Eau Claire during 2008.

LTS determined that it is not in the best interest of the University to attempt a campus-wide upgrade at this time for two reasons.  First, in spite of extensive efforts, we have been unable to determine whether all curricular software presently in use is fully compatible with the new operating system.  LTS supports approximately 400 different software applications in labs and offices, and we've been unable to fully test each application with Vista.  Second, Vista forces us to adopt new software deployment mechanisms.  LTS has not gained sufficient exposure to the new deployment tools to enable us to ensure a stable computing environment under Vista.

Microsoft is working on the development of a successor to Vista, presently called "Windows-7,” scheduled for release in 2010.  It's conceivable that our campus will skip Vista entirely, instead choosing to migrate directly to Windows-7. 

Recognizing that a number of people in the University community, including students, faculty and staff, use Microsoft Vista on their home computers, LTS has developed extensive documentation.  Vista documentation is available online.