For anyone who bought a Windows-based computer this summer - including the hundreds of freshmen who purchased new laptops for school - it probably came with Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista, or at least an available upgrade from it's predecessor, Windows XP.
Operating system upgrades are no new game for Microsoft, which has continually upgraded over the years from the original Windows 1.0 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows XP. But for perhaps the first time, the upgrade to Vista is causing headaches for some colleges - and college students - nationwide.
A posting on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site reported in September that while colleges are beginning to upgrade some of their computers, and while they have been quicker to adapt to Vista than businesses have, many schools do not actively support the software through encouraging its purchase. The result can be students and professors with incompatible files - in Vista, word documents are saved as .docx files, which do not open on older versions of Microsoft Office.
According to Dawn Irish, the Associate Director of Outreach at Tufts University Information Technology Services (ITS), some students and faculty members have been upgrading to Vista. But the support centers at each of Tufts' different schools are still considering whether or not to support the software.
"Each of the ... centers is making up [its] own mind as to whether or not to use Vista," Irish said.
According to Irish, there are "pockets of people who use [Vista]" at Tufts. This, she said, has led to some "compatibility issues" with the software that Tufts uses, most notably its virus scanning software manufactured by Trend.
Irish said that businesses and colleges have been slow to upgrade to Vista because currently "people don't need Vista to do their job." But she said that may soon change.
"Eventually the whole world will upgrade to Vista," Irish said.
Many campus information technology groups throughout the country have drawn similar conclusions on whether or not to make the upgrade.
On its Web site, Boston College ITS "strongly recommends that BC community members wait to upgrade their BC owned or home computers from Windows XP to Vista," the site says. Harvard's Desktop LAN Support, the tech support offshoot of its ITS department, does not support or install Vista on its machines either.
Tufts Online, which provides tech support for student computers, has worked with the new operating system with some success. Senior Isidoros Passadis of Tufts Online said that though the group had been experiencing problems with Vista computers going into sleep mode and not turning back on, such issues have now been resolved.
The department has also received computers with Vista that had issues with network connectivity and with printer drivers. Passadis said that while Windows Vista comes preinstalled with virus software manufactured by MacAfee, Tufts OnLine uses the Spybot program, which was not Vista-compatible until recently.
For students who choose to upgrade, however, Tufts OnLine can help students take advantage of the program Microsoft Student Select for Higher Ed, which allows students to download the upgrade to Windows Vista along with Microsoft programs, such as Word and Excel, for lower than their retail prices.
The program offers students an upgrade to Windows Vista Business edition for $67.15, Vista Ultimate edition for $87.95 and Microsoft Office Standard 2007 for $58.40, all less than their standard prices.
According to a Microsoft spokesperson, Microsoft developed its Student Select program to assist students in upgrading to Vista.
"We have developed relationships with some of the largest universities and colleges in the world and as we work with them at various levels of Windows Vista deployment and upgrading, we are committed to their success," the spokesperson said in an e-mail to the Daily. "In the coming months we will continue to release updates to Windows Vista through Windows Update that are designed to fix top customer issues ... specifically involving reliability, compatibility, stability, security and performance."
According to Passadis and Irish, the issues that Microsoft's updates will look to fix are one reason why the university is not strongly recommending that students upgrade - at least not yet.
At Tufts, students have varying opinions on the new operating system. Freshman Ashley Asiedu-Frimpong, a Vista user, said she think it's an improvement over her previous systems.
"I assume that since it's the newer version, it's better, so I haven't investigated," she said. "I have faith in Windows."
For freshman Caccy Bowlus, another Vista user, the new system brings Microsoft closer to its top competitor, Apple Inc. The Tiger version of Apple's Mac OSX operating system made waves at its release with the introduction of new concepts such as the Spotlight search tool and Dashboard, a tool used to house small applications called Widgets.
Microsoft's Vista has introduced similar features, such as the Instant Search tool and Windows Aero, which enables the user to manipulate the open windows in various ways.
"They're trying to be more like Macs," Bowlus said.
