Computer Support - Software

Windows Vista

In January, ENS sent a note regarding Microsoft Vista to students, faculty, and staff regarding the fact that it is not currently supported on campus. We're posting further details because, in actual fact, neither ENS nor ACNS encourages you to use it at all. Please understand that this is not just Microsoft bashing. At present, there is no compelling reason to upgrade to Vista (for another opinion on this, see this article) and there are lots of reasons NOT to upgrade to Vista (described in detail here).

1. In particular, academic study of the security and content protection of Vista has produced some less than stellar findings (here's one example). Vista security is so heavy-handed that some even suggest turning it all off. Security vendors themselves are unconvinced that Vista is truly more secure, in particular because it relies on Microsoft programming itself for most of its security (see details).
2. Even in ComputerWorld's "Essential Vista Upgrade Guide" , the article starts off referring it's readers to "plenty of reasons" not to upgrade.
3. After customers requested it, Dell has begun offering new consumer PCs with Windows XP installed. This is a reversal of their original plan to switch all of their systems to Vista.
4. And most important for the College of Engineering, a number of Engineering software packages do not currently install or function correctly on Windows Vista.

In summary, it is the opinion of most campus IT staff that you not upgrade to Vista until the operating system has an opportunity to become more mature. If you purchase a new system with Vista, we encourage you to remove it and install Windows XP (there is no charge to do so for Engineering faculty).

For those who just have to install Vista, be sure to read the "Essential" guide, above. It will, at least, help you steer clear of the known pitfalls.

Upgrading to Vista

If, despite this recommendation, you wish to upgrade to Vista and your major is Engineering you can receive a free copy of Windows Vista Business, as well as other select Microsoft programs. More details are available on the Microsoft ELMS page. Faculty and staff should talk to their ENS support analyst.

Known Vista Issues

• Networking is unreliable. Our reports indicate that Vista has difficulty mapping any of the Engineering network drives (T: drive, U: drive, etc.)
  
  There are two workarounds that we have found that can be used to map Engineering network drives:
  
  The first is to edit Vista's security policies using the GUI.
  
  The second is to use the Registry Editor.
  1) Go to Start > Run and type "regedit".
  2) Locate this key:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\LMCompatibilityLevel
  
  This key controls the security level mandated or allowed for logins. In Vista it defaults to 0x3, which means "NTLMv2 only".
  3) The fix is to change it to 0x1, which means "use NTLMv2 if available, or older versions if not."
  4) Reboot.