Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays?

#161

Post by duncan_bayne » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 12:34 AM UTC

At the company I work, we use Windows for an array of monitors running in our network operations centre. The only reason we went with Windows was that the display multiplexer thingy we bought doesn't support Linux.

Our app is entirely web-based, so it was quite possible to choose any reasonably modern OS.

http://xkcd.com/934/

Re: Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays?

#162

Post by dmaselbas » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

At one point I was writing a small custom DS platform for a client with a big corporate MS it staff. They all had their microsoft books on their desks relating to their job responsibilities. Any mention of something that didn't have a ms or cisco logo on it, was instantly meet with disapproval. Long story kinda short, I failed and lost out to another vendor, because i couldn't convince the IT guy I had been partnered with that Java and javascript weren't the same thing. I was having issues with js on ie9, they read it as incompetence; little do they know (or not now for that matter).

Re: Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays?

#163

Post by dmaselbas » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

AsmMAn wrote: post #75

I want to get into real market to see how many unstable is Windows. I really, really want to see that.

Not so much windows, but if you run your app in ie, you will run out of memory in a day or so. I had auto reboot every night at midnight. On the other hand I have run a small tomcat server on a cheap hp box running bare minimum win7, and it literally ran for years without an issue.

Re: Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays?

#164

Post by boomlinde » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 7:49 AM UTC

_mgr wrote: post #160

boomlinde wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you're into Windows, setting up a web server actually _is_ a hassle to you. Rest assured that there are easier ways. If you simply want to use a web server for local sharing, forget about patching and "maintaining" the configuration. Just install it and you're done (or why not use the file:// URI scheme? I can't see any compelling reason not to in a non-interactive setup). As for maintaining the web applic…

If anyone I oversee actively decides to not patch and maintain a system within an enterprise network for any reason, they will find themselves back on helpdesk doing password resets until they learn better. Pentesters / hackers love using setups like you suggest as easy targets to provide them with perstitant backdoors. 3 and 5 years are the common life cycle's enterprise IT use when discussing any existing implement…

First off, when I say "maintaining" I meant the configuration. When I say patching, I mean patching, not just trivially installing software updates. Spearchucker was trying to make this a look like a huge disadvantage over maintaining a Windows system, which it obviously is not.

Oh and as far as I'm concerned "3 to 5 years" is still pulled out of nowhere. You aren't mentioning any sources, just describing a really vague process that you think is "common". If you have a working, flexible system with which you can harness a huge continuous effort in developing the technology behind it for free, you aren't going to kill it off just because your enterprise clock says so.