Ask For Salary Increase....rejected...should I Leave?

Technowiz

But you can't take it personally. It usually isn't personal. The reality is they don't think I can find a better paying job given my skillset in my area, or even if I could, they're not willing to pay that much. They knew full well they pissed me off doing that. It's a calculated risk on their side.

Absolutely right. Many companies (understandably) play this game. They are going to pay as little as possible for as much as possible in return. We all do it as consumers. Sometimes that risk bites them in the rear when you land a better job offer. That is why I think counter offers from current employers should rarely be entertained. It is giving them a pass for refusing to pay you what they knew you were worth to them all along.

Back to the original poster. Dude, it's not personal. If it costs money to have someone with the skillset you have, they don't want it. Whether or not they admit it, they do not want someone who can actually do the job well. Think about it - did you know how to admin all this stuff before you got the job? Sounds like no. Why do you think they hired you in the first place instead of get a guy who already could? Simple: those guys wouldn't accept that low of a salary. So you got what you needed - a chance to learn and experience. They got what they needed - someone to keep that busted ship of an IT infrastructure afloat. They've ceased to provide you with what you need anymore, so it's time to move on. Don't worry about them; they'll find someone they think can keep the ship afloat, and if he or she can't, hey, they didn't pay for someone who actually knew what to do already, and they either knew that when they hired someone for that low of a salary, or they're too stupid to realize what they're doing. In either case, it doesn't matter to you once you move on up.

Very well said. I was hired by my employer under similar circumstances but was fortunate enough that they chose to reward me for my efforts.

undomiel

Daniel333 wrote:

Ditch it! I made that much at Geek Squad.

The experience will do you well anyway.

How depressing, Geek Squad makes more than me. Maybe I should apply there.

Technowiz wrote:

While changes in the economy will affect what your market value might be, the relevant question to ask is not "how is the economy right now?" but "How does my wage compare with the market value of my work?". Because if the answer to that question is that it doesn't compare very well then you should realize you aren't making what you are worth no matter what the economy happens to be doing at that particular point in time. And again, just as companies in good times don't pay employees more than what they are worth you should not accept being paid less than what you are worth in bad times.

This part is so true. In the end if you are being paid under market value you just come to resent the company and your job more and more. It is not a good cycle to be in.

itdaddy

malcybood


dude i wouldnt move to 2008 if you paid me. just a flashy vista that is all
and i do not like vista performance is freaking slow; man i do like the SSL VPN stuff
and SFTP with 2008 but man me personally all our new servers 2003 EE or STND
we are not going to 2008 unless we have to and it will be mixed mode and not native here.
i do not see anyone going to 2008 but the huge huge coorporations

itdaddy

heropscho wrote:

But you can't take it personally. It usually isn't personal. The reality is they don't think I can find a better paying job given my skillset in my area, or even if I could, they're not willing to pay that much. They knew full well they pissed me off doing that. It's a calculated risk on their side.

And don't worry, I got no qualms paying them back by finding a better job. But the reality is the market sucks right now, so it's taking some time.

yo heropschyo

i hear you! yeah, that is why my sanity and peace of mind is more important.
you are right about the market though it sucks here in WIS that is why I do side jobs
at 50.00 per hour. KInd of slow there too but ihave been trying to get a lot of small busienss work to make some gas money! %^$#@#@% gas prices!!!!!!!
but i know my hard work will pan out and yours will tooo. lazy people will be found out!
and us big dogs will rock on forward to the big time!

itdaddy

But we plan to implement 2008 in Terminal Services. BTW i complete this path (Server 200 because is the new incoming Tech, i want to be up to date and learn because for me have no sence now to take for MCSA 2003 (No Offence), just i feel is right move to the new certification path. I don't ask i for a increase for my Cert but for the time i have been working here.

pesinet!

2003 will be here a long time i do not see people jumpingto 2008(vista on steriods)
If you need it for a specific maybe capacity or maybe running SSL/VPNs sure. but
I do not see the ROI unless it is crucial to have. VISTA sucks and I have seen
2008 server. Yeah it has somenice bells and wissles but I know for afact
through my underground sources, it can be hacked easily....i have seen it!
so i am very doubtful people should jump right int 2008 so fresh and so vista like
maybe i am wrong. but I let the big companies do my beta testing for me! hee hee
but good for you to get 2008 behind you; i have been just listeing to some of our vendors
who are PC shops and techs engineers they have nooone buying 2008 anything a few vista laptops but all xp and 2003 servers cause it is stable and seems secure...i give 2008 2 or 3 years to mature and catch on....

itdaddy

undomiel


me to an ALL-Tell cell phone sales tech makes more than me! and i bust my Arse in IT
and they sit and twittle phones! and call me for help.

yeah amazing Geeks squad gets paid that! do i have some storties about them

Turgon

pesinet wrote:

I have been working in my company 2 years and 2 month, this month i finish my Certification Path for MCITP - Server Administrator, I talked with the people in charge of IT (No IT Director Right Now) and she told me that for my position i don't need that cert (I am working as System Administrator) that the company is in bad situation and so. I think that i going to find a new job in leave my company.

are you agree with me.

Thanks,


Pesinet

I have read the other replies. I would say have a look around.

malcybood

Technowiz wrote:

Got to re-itterate the state of the global economy at the moment too, soaring house, gas and oil prices to mention a few things, many companies are feeling the pinch although some companies will no doubt use this as a cop out in paying for anything let alone pay rises!

I have to take issue with statements like these. I understand the point trying to be made. But in the case of the individual employee, the state of the economy or the financial health of the employer has no bearing on what the employee should or should not expect to be paid. What I mean by this is that the original poster should expect and be seeking a competitive market wage for his work. He should no more accept a wage below his market value due to a company's poor finances than an employer should pay an employee a wage above their market value due to the employees financial hardships. While changes in the economy will affect what your market value might be, the relevant question to ask is not "how is the economy right now?" but "How does my wage compare with the market value of my work?". Because if the answer to that question is that it doesn't compare very well then you should realize you aren't making what you are worth no matter what the economy happens to be doing at that particular point in time. And again, just as companies in good times don't pay employees more than what they are worth you should not accept being paid less than what you are worth in bad times.

From an ethical and moral view point the majority of what you say is valid and I commpletely agree. We all want to be paid what we think we're worth but it doesn't always happen.

In the real world I feel my views are valid and more realistic.

The economy has a very large part to play in employee runemeration.

I can give you an example, I work in the construction industry for a multi national company based in the UK. We have 3 major divisions made up of commercial property construction, property development/management & residential house building division.

The construction and development businesses had a successful buoyant financial year in 07/08. With the struggles in the housing industry i.e. credit crunch, first time buyers struggling to secure mortgages etc, we had a knock on effect of 116 people were made redundant just last week in the residential housing division throughout the country in different areas from architects to site managers to sales execs.

These people have families and some have worked with the business for over 10 years....gone just like that! The chances are they will struggle to find another job as the rest of the housing industry is in the same boat...... Yes I know this is not IT related but in a round about way it is as if it wasn't for the people selling and building the houses, I wouldn't have a job in IT. Are you telling me this is not to do with the current state of the economy?

The point I was making in the rest of my previous post was that the guy went and done MCITP off his own back which is commendable, however unless his company are going to a full blown 2008 infrastructure in the near future how does this merit a pay rise?

He then said he was requesting a pay rise based on the work he has contributed over last few years which is fair enough if he hasn't had a raise in 2 years or even the last year.

Anyway my advice for pesinet is that if you're unhappy then move on, if not build a legitimate case for getting a raise i.e. do some research on what jobs are being advertised in your area and show to your boss. Better still get a job offer in writing and show them. If you're happy to stay on with negotiation then cool you got your raise and can go back to enjoying your job, if they dont play ball then you can leave anyway. Quite straight forward

Technowiz

Server 2008 is a much better product than Vista. It has some nice features that make it more secure and better performing than 2003. Vista is a flop and probably won't have a long life, but Server 2008 will.

blargoe

itdaddy wrote:

malcybood


dude i wouldnt move to 2008 if you paid me. just a flashy vista that is all
and i do not like vista performance is freaking slow; man i do like the SSL VPN stuff
and SFTP with 2008 but man me personally all our new servers 2003 EE or STND
we are not going to 2008 unless we have to and it will be mixed mode and not native here.
i do not see anyone going to 2008 but the huge huge coorporations

Have you actually even used 2008 Server?

snadam

Technowiz wrote:

Server 2008 is a much better product than Vista. It has some nice features that make it more secure and better performing than 2003. Vista is a flop and probably won't have a long life, but Server 2008 will.

yea dude, I have heard nothing but great things about it (server 200. Unfortunately there is no room in the budget for an upgrade at this point. Google windows 7 (vista's successor) and see how its coming along.

malcybood

ITdaddy,

We are planning putting in server 2008 for an Outlook/Exchange migration from Novell Groupwise. 2000 user environment so not sure if that classes as a huge corp or no. Medium sized I think

I'm not really dealing with the project other than from a networking perspective though so can't comment on how good it is or isn't.

The Infrastructure guys have been consulting with Gartner and using various reference customers and have had positive feedback so far.

Malc

Technowiz

Malc,

The points you make about the economy are valid but I think you missed my point. Yes the economy can and does influence your value on the labor market. Many factors can impact that value such as changing technology. A NT/Win98 expert is not worth today what they were worth 9 years ago. These factors that influence supply and demand are always changing. The point I was making is that one should always be striving to make their market value, whatever it might be, despite how good or bad the economy is.

So to illustrate, if it is 1999 and you are making 50k as a web developer and the market value of web developers with your experience, skill, etc is in the 45k-55k range then you are not going to expect a salary of 65k just because the economy is doing well. Nor should you accept a wage of 35k.

Now the dot com bubble busts and the market value of web developers like you drops to the 35k-45k range. You get laid off and have to find another job. How much should you be looking for? Is the 50k that was reasonable before still reasonable? No. But on the other hand should you take a web development job at 25k because the economy is in the tank? No! In both cases, whether the economy is up or down you should be aiming for a competitive market wage whatever that happens to be under the circumstances.


The OP may very well have increased his value to the point that it exceeds the value of his current position to his employer. Maybe because he has gained a skill that is valuable to other companies but not his current one? In that case assuming there are no other overriding factors the thing to do is find a company that he can be of more use to and go to work for them.

cablegod

blargoe wrote:

itdaddy wrote:

malcybood


dude i wouldnt move to 2008 if you paid me. just a flashy vista that is all
and i do not like vista performance is freaking slow; man i do like the SSL VPN stuff
and SFTP with 2008 but man me personally all our new servers 2003 EE or STND
we are not going to 2008 unless we have to and it will be mixed mode and not native here.
i do not see anyone going to 2008 but the huge huge coorporations

Have you actually even used 2008 Server?

I was wondering the same thing. I think you should give it a very thorough trial before lumping it together with Vista.

malcybood

Technowiz,

Think you missed my point - he could be jobless, without an option of a 35k job and a family to support! As I entioned before I do think he's getting a bum deal and should sort out the $$$ dispute where he is based on performance or move on

Malc

Turgon

Technowiz wrote:

Malc,

The points you make about the economy are valid but I think you missed my point. Yes the economy can and does influence your value on the labor market. Many factors can impact that value such as changing technology. A NT/Win98 expert is not worth today what they were worth 9 years ago. These factors that influence supply and demand are always changing. The point I was making is that one should always be striving to make their market value, whatever it might be, despite how good or bad the economy is.

So to illustrate, if it is 1999 and you are making 50k as a web developer and the market value of web developers with your experience, skill, etc is in the 45k-55k range then you are not going to expect a salary of 65k just because the economy is doing well. Nor should you accept a wage of 35k.

Now the dot com bubble busts and the market value of web developers like you drops to the 35k-45k range. You get laid off and have to find another job. How much should you be looking for? Is the 50k that was reasonable before still reasonable? No. But on the other hand should you take a web development job at 25k because the economy is in the tank? No! In both cases, whether the economy is up or down you should be aiming for a competitive market wage whatever that happens to be under the circumstances.


The OP may very well have increased his value to the point that it exceeds the value of his current position to his employer. Maybe because he has gained a skill that is valuable to other companies but not his current one? In that case assuming there are no other overriding factors the thing to do is find a company that he can be of more use to and go to work for them.

The best thing is to look at the job boards and get a figure. If you believe you are *really* good shoot for 20% above that. If you are really good you will get offers!

nato76

There are good jobs out there. You just have to go and look for them.

HeroPsycho

itdaddy wrote:

dude i wouldnt move to 2008 if you paid me. just a flashy vista that is all
and i do not like vista performance is freaking slow; man i do like the SSL VPN stuff
and SFTP with 2008 but man me personally all our new servers 2003 EE or STND
we are not going to 2008 unless we have to and it will be mixed mode and not native here.
i do not see anyone going to 2008 but the huge huge coorporations

#1. Vista is a flashy version of 2008, not the other way around.
#2. Vista is a good OS. I don't care to debate this whole, "does vista suck" thing, but people seem to forget that Windows 2000, the last major OS upgrade, had a slew of performance and compatibility problems when it came out. Why would you think Vista would be perfect upon release? It's security is far more advanced than XP, an security was easily the weakest link within XP.
#3. Windows 2008 has a ton of good features. The Terminal Services piece is far more advanced than W2K3. Geoclustering support out of the box. DFS V2 rocks. IIS is far more advanced.
#4. If you seriously think W2K8 will only be used by major corporations, you're sorely mistaken. Do I expect people will migrate overnight? No. But you'll see some migrate for features they need, and others will begin buying W2K8 since it will become the de facto Windows server OS.

royal

Agreed 100% with HeroPsycho. Let's not forget that people hated XP when it came out. People didn't like it till it hit SP2 when it became more secure (Firewall On, Etc...) and people's computers caught up with the performance requirements.

Technowiz

Only time will tell but I think vista is already past the point of no return in the numbers of people who have a bad opinion of it. Driver support and application compatibility have been sore spots for it but the worst thing is it's inefficient use of system resources. I had a small business client who bought a vista desktop thinking it would be great cause it was new. But the vendor only gave it 512MB of ram so guess what? Slow as hell. I dropped another 512 in it (he wanted the cheapest memory upgrade he could get) and it helped but even on a gig of ram it was still slow. Put XP or Ubuntu on that system and it would fly. There is no excuse for vista being such a poor performing OS and I would bet that windows 7 will be less bloated and better performing when it comes out. If it isn't, microsoft is in trouble. I can run server 2008 in a VM on my laptop and it runs great. Can't do that with vista.

Microsoft is likely scrambling behind the scenes right now to push up the release date of windows 7. But like I said, time will tell.

Megadeth4168

If you are in an environment running antiquated peripherals and legacy software and do not plan to change that anytime soon, then Vista might not be a viable option. However, I just bought a computer for my Dad a couple months back with Vista and I just bought my new laptop this month with Vista. My dad's computer came with 512mb RAM and yes, his system ran slow.

I tweaked the system all I could, turning off visual effects and unneeded services but it was still not as fast as XP. So for $25 I went out and grabbed 1Gb of RAM and added that to his system. It flew after that.

My laptop came with 2Gb and it flies! I hate to say it, but I'm warming up to Vista, and I am seeing it perform well once it has enough Memory to satisfy it's hunger. I also have all newer peripherals so that is not an issue either. And since SP1 came out it seems to be performing even better.

That's just my 2 cents.

Anyway, About the Salary increase... I'm in a similar situation myself. I make 40K with a job title shared by someone who isn't even in IT, and I have put in a request for a 15K increase and Job title change to Network Administrator. I have a maybe right now and am waiting to hear back about it. So I understand exactly where you are coming from. My advice to you is to start looking around. Maybe if you land another job, your current job will then want to negotiate. Best of Luck to you!

snadam

Megadeth4168 wrote:

If you are in an environment running antiquated peripherals and legacy software and do not plan to change that anytime soon, then Vista might not be a viable option. However, I just bought a computer for my Dad a couple months back with Vista and I just bought my new laptop this month with Vista. My dad's computer came with 512mb RAM and yes, his system ran slow.

I tweaked the system all I could, turning off visual effects and unneeded services but it was still not as fast as XP. So for $25 I went out and grabbed 1Gb of RAM and added that to his system. It flew after that.

My laptop came with 2Gb and it flies! I hate to say it, but I'm warming up to Vista, and I am seeing it perform well once it has enough Memory to satisfy it's hunger. I also have all newer peripherals so that is not an issue either. And since SP1 came out it seems to be performing even better.

That's just my 2 cents.

Anyway, About the Salary increase... I'm in a similar situation myself. I make 40K with a job title shared by someone who isn't even in IT, and I have put in a request for a 15K increase and Job title change to Network Administrator. I have a maybe right now and am waiting to hear back about it. So I understand exactly where you are coming from. My advice to you is to start looking around. Maybe if you land another job, your current job will then want to negotiate. Best of Luck to you!

on vista:

I agree with you megadeth. To further add, Many people dont realize or forget that Vista is made for 'todays' hi-powered hardware demands (where 2GB+ RAM and multi-core CPU would be commonplace) in mind. So since people feel that it runs like crap on thier top of the line pc from 3 years ago, it evidently 'sucks'. Try putting XP on your 15 year old PII box and see how it runs. You will get similar results. I also think the downfall is the manufacturers selling vista boxes with only 512k, knowing the performance levels are sub par.


on the job thing,

megadeth that sucks man. I hope you get your increase. best of luck to you as well.

Mishra

Yeah but Vista does has unusually high requirements. XP seems to run fine on anything that is PII and above but I'm not really trying to debate XP's functionality.

I just bought a brand new computer and XP still has lag times. Microsoft just doesn't create nice fast streamline operating systems.

I think Vista's requirements are high but it not a complete garbage OS like ME was. I prefer XP until Microsoft does some more work on Vista (although I don't see it changing much anymore). I do wish MS did a better job on Vista and just like any other product they felt the need to get it out there before it's truly finished. (not many companies do it right the first time... Blizzard is the first company that pops into my brain that does things right from the beginning).

I'm just half-and-half on the whole thing. The only difference between the XP experience (meaning from birth to death) and Vista experience is that Vista won't turn out quite as great as XP in the end. You win some and you lose some.

snadam

Mishra wrote:

Yeah but Vista does has unusually high requirements. XP seems to run fine on anything that is PII and above but I'm not really trying to debate XP's functionality.

I just bought a brand new computer and XP still has lag times. Microsoft just doesn't create nice fast streamline operating systems.

I think Vista's requirements are high but it not a complete garbage OS like ME was. I prefer XP until Microsoft does some more work on Vista (although I don't see it changing much anymore). I do wish MS did a better job on Vista and just like any other product they felt the need to get it out there before it's truly finished. (not many companies do it right the first time... Blizzard is the first company that pops into my brain that does things right from the beginning).

I'm just half-and-half on the whole thing. The only difference between the XP experience (meaning from birth to death) and Vista experience is that Vista won't turn out quite as great as XP in the end. You win some and you lose some.

agreed, while vistas hardware requirements are not its downfall, it plays a big part in the public view of the OS. There are a few other issues that somewhat 'plague it'; but by no means is it the next ME as you put it. I run, and will run until the next OS XP at home and work.

HeroPsycho

Technowiz wrote:

Only time will tell but I think vista is already past the point of no return in the numbers of people who have a bad opinion of it. Driver support and application compatibility have been sore spots for it but the worst thing is it's inefficient use of system resources. I had a small business client who bought a vista desktop thinking it would be great cause it was new. But the vendor only gave it 512MB of ram so guess what? Slow as hell. I dropped another 512 in it (he wanted the cheapest memory upgrade he could get) and it helped but even on a gig of ram it was still slow. Put XP or Ubuntu on that system and it would fly. There is no excuse for vista being such a poor performing OS and I would bet that windows 7 will be less bloated and better performing when it comes out. If it isn't, microsoft is in trouble. I can run server 2008 in a VM on my laptop and it runs great. Can't do that with vista.

Microsoft is likely scrambling behind the scenes right now to push up the release date of windows 7. But like I said, time will tell.

Vista upon release is no more "inefficient" than previous MS OS's. I don't understand that argument at all. You know that Windows 3.11 ran okay with 8M of RAM, but Win95 didn't. You know that Win98 ran okay with 64M of RAM, but Windows 2000 didn't. You know that Windows XP ran okay with 512M of RAM, but Vista doesn't.

Vista does more than previous OS's, just like XP did compared to 2000, 2000 to 98, 9X to 3.11. It's called progress. XP was superior to its predecessors, and Vista is superior to XP. Considering Vista is a major change to the OS similar to the jump from 9X to 2000, this has been easily the least painful transition I've had out of 3/11 to 95, and 98 to 2000.

And you can't judge Vista by how a preloaded with craplets Dell, HP, or whatever runs it. My Vista machine that I built myself, running on an Opteron 165 which is now not even close to bleeding edge runs Vista great.

astorrs

About 3 or 4 years ago I had to build a bunch of NT4 PDCs & BDCs as virtual machines on a couple of multi processor Xeon servers (I think they were 3.6Ghz or so, single core) with 15K SCSI disks. I assigned the VMs 256MB RAM each (I figured that would be ample and there was lots of memory to spare). I remember running the Service Pack 6a install and being amazed how it completed in about 25 seconds. Back when SP6a came out it used to take over 5 minutes. Why in fact everything was about 10x faster...

As such, to everyone whining about how slow Vista is on their machines that were built to run XP, might I suggest downgrading to Windows NT 4.0. You'll find the performance gains to be remarkable, mind you you won't be able to take advantage of any of the security improvements (good old PPTP anyone?), user experience improvements, backup and recovery capabilities, ease of configuration, etc of a "modern" O/S like Vista, and you'll have trouble finding drivers for your new HP multifunction printer you picked up for $199 last week - but you'll have no trouble getting that Okidata ML200 sitting in the garage to work. But man will it be smoking fast.

Hmm... now that I think about it you couldn't pay me enough to go backwards. Same for XP, while there are things about Vista that annoy the hell out of me, it's still worth it and I'm willing to drop $40 on 2GB of memory to make it work a little more smoothly.

Technowiz

I see a huge difference in functionality, security, etc going from Win98 to 2000/XP. That justifies the increased hardware requirements. I don't see that same level of differentiation between XP and Vista. And if you really want to talk about efficient hardware usage lets compare Ubuntu to Vista. Ubuntu runs on a lot less and absolutely smokes Vista, especially when you consider what it can do graphically. Look, I'm not an anti-MS guy. Some of their products I like and think are good, others I don't. Vista is one of those I don't think is a good product and I'm definitely not alone in that opinion. For those that like it, great. It may run well on 4 GB of ram and the latest CPU but guess what? I can show you an OS that will run better on the same hardware and that is what I meant when I called it inefficient. Hopefully Windows 7 will be better but in the meantime I will stick with my Ubuntu and XP.

HeroPsycho

Technowiz wrote:

I see a huge difference in functionality, security, etc going from Win98 to 2000/XP. That justifies the increased hardware requirements. I don't see that same level of differentiation between XP and Vista. And if you really want to talk about efficient hardware usage lets compare Ubuntu to Vista. Ubuntu runs on a lot less and absolutely smokes Vista, especially when you consider what it can do graphically. Look, I'm not an anti-MS guy. Some of their products I like and think are good, others I don't. Vista is one of those I don't think is a good product and I'm definitely not alone in that opinion. For those that like it, great. It may run well on 4 GB of ram and the latest CPU but guess what? I can show you an OS that will run better on the same hardware and that is what I meant when I called it inefficient. Hopefully Windows 7 will be better but in the meantime I will stick with my Ubuntu and XP.

If you understand the concepts behind Vista's additional security features with file and registry virtualization, IE protected mode, and UAC, I just don't see how anyone can honestly say there isn't a huge difference in security between XP and Vista. The reality is the vast majority of exploits in XP were successful because users were running as full admins. They did that because running XP with a limited user account was sadistic because Run As often didn't work, or was too difficult to manage, and you needed to be a full admin to do a lot of things. UAC provides a way to dynamically elevate to Admin privs, even if you sign on as an admin. That's a big difference in security, and I have never since logged in as a full admin with Vista.

The other way people were hacked was through attacks on web browsers. IE Protected Mode requires user consent for IE to modify any system files or settings, so the fly by night hackings that regularly occurred in XP/2000 aren't nearly as common.

As for Ubuntu (which I do in fact like) taking far less system resources, what else is new? Linux distros have always been far less demanding than Microsoft operating systems. And all versions of Windows have their benefits over linux as well. Ubuntu being graphically more advanced than Vista?! Really don't see how you can say that.

And I want to reiterate that Vista runs great on my Opteron 165 with 2GB's of RAM. I do not have 4GB of RAM, and I don't have the latest CPU by any stretch of the imagination (Opteron 165's are 2 years old!). I have XP installed on a second hard drive and set up a dual boot. I can't see any visible difference in performance between the two whatsoever. Even my games I can only see a difference when I run benchmarks, and it's less than a 5% difference.

I have Vista running downstairs on an Athlon 3700 with 2GB of RAM, and it runs fine even for Windows Media Center applications. It honestly ran fine with 1GB of RAM, but I had a 2GB kit lying around, so I popped it in. That's a 3 year old processor btw...

Speaking of people who are apparently unhappy with Vista, the vast majority of my immediate family are running it, and while there have been some bumps in the road as is with any change in the OS, overall every single one of them is happy with Vista, and consider it better than XP all things being considered. These are normal users by the way, not power users or techies like me. They are, as me, completely stupified there are lots of users that hate Vista, none of which they've met, which is surprising since they also know numerous people running Vista. I'm sure there are people who don't like Vista and had significant problems with it, just as moving to any OS will inevitably bring, but the demise of Vista and how many people are having problems has been blown way out of proportion.

Technowiz

I can see UAC being an improvement in security but again at what cost? It would be interesting to see what impact the UAC feature actually has on performance because it doesn't seem like something that should have a significant impact. Ubuntu has the same security feature. Does UAC provide a boost in security on the order of something like say going from FAT32 to NTFS? And does it justify the expense of going to such a resource demanding OS? I suspect for most companies including my own the answer is a resounding NO.

If you think Vista compares to Ubuntu on graphics then you aren't familiar with Compiz. The glass windows effect in Vista is just one of myriad eye candy features in compiz. Ubuntu/Compiz gives you flaming windows that you can peel back and peek behind, water effects, a 3D desktop, etc and it can run on a lot older graphical processors than what Vista requires. Again it's just a matter of Vista being a bloated OS IMO. A lot of home users don't have hardware that will run Vista well if it will even run it at all. Yet on that same hardware they could run Ubuntu with just as good if not better security and much better eye candy, not to mention its free. What does Vista offer in the way of performance or functionality that overcomes that and makes it a competitive desktop OS?

Same thing with the web browsing. An XP user can run firefox with the no script plugin and that is probably about as safe a web surfing experience as you are going to find.

I work with one guy who bought a computer with vista on it and after finding he had to upgrade the memory on it he is ok with it and continues to use it. I know far more people that tried Vista and went back to XP or even made the switch to Ubuntu. Sometimes it is driver issues or application compatibility but more often than not, it is laggy performance.

I think the question isn't whether or not there are improvements from XP to Vista but whether the improvements are proportional to the increased resource requirements.

At least on the server side Microsoft has Active Directory and Group Policy which is a very powerful combination in an enterprise environment that linux just doesn't really have an answer to. I don't see anything like that with Vista. For the average home user who just surfs the internet, does word processing, etc they can still do just fine with XP and Firefox. For powerusers I think Ubuntu is the way to go. And for corporations I don't really see any compelling business reason to make the jump from XP to Vista.

HeroPsycho

UAC, IE Protected Mode, and registry/system file virtualization are actually more important security advances for most users than NTFS. XP was by far Microsoft's most exploited operating system for a myriad of reasons, some of which were simply the fact that Microsoft OS's hold the most market share, and are therefore attacked more than any others. However, it's still important to note that NTFS really didn't hinder hackers at all from launching successful attacks. Most users, which are home users, simply did not know how to leverage NTFS to improve security, and it didn't honestly matter anyway. Since it was so difficult to run XP on a day to day basis without full admin creds, once a process launched by the user was successfully attacked, the attacker had god rights on the box anyway, and could alter NTFS permissions if they wanted to.

The reality is attacks are increasingly becoming application based attacks, and most commonly attacks are being carried out against the browser. If you think you're safe running XP with Firefox to surf as your best defense against being attacked, that's simply not "as safe as you're gonna get". Malicious javascripts can exploit Firefox just as well as they can exploit Internet Explorer if you're running as admin. Using Firefox over IE (which by the way I do) shields you only from ActiveX exploits, but that's not the only protection you need. Exploits are occurring against things that Firefox is just as susceptible to, like malicious graphics, animation graphics, and common libraries firefox and IE use within Windows.

Will Vista stop hackers dead in their tracks? No. Will Vista be exploited less than Linux or Macs? No. But that has nothing to do with the technical security merits of any of those OS's. It has everything to do with the relative market shares of the OS, and if Macs or Linux became the dominant OS, they would also become the most exploited OS, too. But Vista is harder to successfully exploit than XP by a long shot, there's no question about that.

The overwhelming answer by most businesses at this point to migrate is no for many reasons, and it's not a slap against Vista. When you say Vista has compatibility issues, can you honestly say they're worse for Vista than for Windows 2000 when it first came out? Absolutely not.

Does Vista require more resources that are out of the norm from the jumps in requirements when previous OS's came out? Absolutely not. Vista's requirements are actually more realistic than other requirements have been for previous OS's. Did you know Win95's min RAM requirements were 4M?! Not only was 4M laughable, but the "recommended" amount was at least 8M, and 8M for Windows 95 was laughable. I've seen Vista on 512M of RAM, it's minimum requirement, and believe it or not, you can actually run it on 512M, but it is painfully slow. 1GB on Vista is sluggish just as 256M was sluggish on XP (or even 512M on XP for that matter). But look at the trend of the system requirements and their release dates of the prior Microsoft OS's:

Win95: Min 4M Rec 8M
Win98: Min 16M Rec 24M
Win2K Pro: Min 32M Rec 64M
WinXP: Min 64M Rec 128M

Each of those were 2-3 years apart. Vista was released five years after XP, and you can't tell me that 128M by the time XP SP2 was released was actually plausible to run usefully. Vista's minimum is 512M, and recommends 1GB. There's nothing outlandish about that in this day and age. I was running with 2GB of RAM in XP for a long time before Vista ever released. And Vista runs for all intents and purposes just as well on my machine as XP does today.

And Vista isn't just about better security. The Side Gadgets are cool. Yes, you can get add ons for XP that does the same thing, but that's still an aftermarket app XP doesn't come with. The integrated Start Menu search I use daily, and I miss it when I'm forced to use XP. The file/registry virtualization in it isn't just better for security, but I can fix a lot of problems by moving my docs to a new profile. Previous Versions is built into the OS, which helped me fix things like a corrupted Itunes library file.

All these things add up to making Vista a good OS, and has many features other OS's, both Microsoft and non-Microsoft, simply don't have. Aside from my video card, my machine is a few years old, and I have absolutely no performance problems with Vista, so I honestly don't care Ubuntu would run faster. Ubuntu simply can't do all that I want to do that Vista can.

About Compiz, you're beginning to blur the line about what is Ubuntu, and what is an aftermarket product. Compiz doesn't come with Ubuntu.