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As the time of this writing more than 500 4sysops readers took part in this poll. I must admit I am a bit surprised about the results. 44% of 4sysops readers already deployed Windows 7 and 26% plan to deploy Windows 7 without the service pack. Only 17% want to wait for SP1, 8% will skip Windows 7, and 5% are undecided.
I only added the option that got the majority of the votes after Lukas complained about the incompleteness of this poll. I never imagined that 44% have already deployed Windows 7 by now. Considering that the Windows 7 market share is now about 10% this number can hardly be representative.
If you add the 26% of those who want to deploy Windows 7 without SP1, then 70% of all 4sysops will be running Windows 7 in their organizations very soon. It’s also somewhat hard to believe that only 8% will skip Windows 7.
Perhaps I chased away all XP supporters with my rants? If so, I am really sorry. I love it when readers oppose my opinions in comments. It would be a pity if all conservative admins are now only reading InfoWorld. 
Are any XP advocates reading this? Please do me favor and speak out now. It would really be great if a few are still left on this blog.
“I love it when readers oppose my opinions in comments.” NO YOU DON’T!
We will wait for Windows 7 SP1 before we deploy.
Richard, haha thank you! I like to start the morning with a hearty laugh.
Adrian, thanks. It is good to know that at least some admins still value tradition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7
Enuf said.
I missing some essential features in those lists. MS also removed quite a few of XP’s “malware APIs”.
Ours is a small enterprise, but we’ve already deployed Windows 7. In all honesty, we were perfectly happy with Vista, but there was enough good stuff in 7 to warrant the move. Trying to think of a single complaint I have with the OS–but can’t. (Oh, actually, Windows Media Center took a few buggy turns for the worse, but other than that…)
Out of interest, i ran a database query over our ERP to see how much Windows 7 licenses we sold (that’s upgrade, retail and OEM licenses).
The current count is 237. In comparison, we sold 23 Vista licenses and 40 XP licenses.
To me, this shows that many customers are eager to upgrade existing systems, rather than buy new machines to run Windows 7 on (that said, we also noticed a spike in PC sales).
Just completed an XP to Win7-SP1 migration, glad I advised client to avoid Vista and wait for 7 as technically migration was very straight-forward also good user experience!?
The key advantages we gained from waiting were:
1. Reduced effort/costs: The vast majority of enterprise applications now fully support Win7 (although even now there are few 64-bit implementations).
2. Reduced effort/costs: The various vendors now have real experience of deploying and supporting their product in Windows 7 environments.
3. Improved service: Internal IT could spend time on the build rather than getting third-party applications running on windows 7, resulting in a better and more stable platform and associated infrastructure which in turn gives a better user experience and reduced helpdesk calls (translation: praise for IT).
4. Improved delivery/cost savings: Windows 7 deployment could be to both new and (many) existing desktops/laptops and hence could be effected more rapidly. (This benefit largely arose because less time being required getting applications to work on Win7, so effort could be spent determining the extent to which existing kit could be upgraded).
5. Skill building/knowledge transfer: Many users had Windows 7 at home so were able to assist their co-workers.
The decision to wait for SP1 was more about timing, once SP1 was announced there seemed little point in going ahead with a rollout and then within weeks having a major update, with the risk of user’s seeing things breaking…
[Aside: Only came across this article today whilst researching somthing else. So am aware that this is over a year old, I thought it would be useful to add a piece looking back from where we are now; with Windows 8 on the horizon…