Firms Are Waiting on Windows Vista

It has been almost a year since Windows Vista was released to businesses, but a spate of hardware compatibility issues has many still waiting to upgrade until the release of the first service pack, scheduled for early next year. With the next version of Windows due in late 2009, PC World thinks many companies may skip upgrading to Vista altogether.

Vista users have had problems running it on older PCs and interacting with printers or scanners that were made a year or so ago—and even on computers optimized for Vista, the experience has reportedly been less than optimal. The service pack, Vista SP1, may be Microsoft's last chance to smooth the experience over—or many users may just hold on to XP. (More Microsoft stories.)