Thomas College - Advantages to Windows Vista at Thomas

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"The friendships I've made at Thomas have been nothing short of amazing; in such an intimate, tight-knit community, you get to know other students quite well. These are the relationships that will last long after I graduate, some for a lifetime. I�m also really excited to think about ten years down the road and see what we�ve become, reflecting back on how our Thomas experience helped to shape and guide us."

Missy White
Presque Isle, Maine
Psychology

Advantages to Windows Vista at Thomas

Thomas upgraded most Windows XP computers on campus to Windows Vista during the summer of 2007. Advantages are listed below:

Student demand: 2/3 of new students and 1/3 of returning students arrived in August 2007 with Windows Vista
Enhanced security:
- Internet Explorer 7 Protected Mode (unique to Windows Vista) which prevents the silent install of malicious code
- Windows Vista User Account Control gives users the power to do more things on their own, with greater application compatibility than on previous versions of Windows while reducing the attack surface area
- BitLocker Drive Encryption to secure hard drives
Ability to take advantage of application and operating system virtualization, reducing time required for upgrades
Increased management: 500 new group policy objects (example: centrally managed Power Settings)
A built-in diagnostics log is created to help walk users step by step through solving an application or hardware driver problem
To create a homogenous environment
To implement a consistent user interface for Windows 2008 terminal server users (due Feb. 2008)
Support for Windows XP will be dropped around 2009/2010.