But it's a heavy-handed way to get companies into Software Assurance.

Installing the patches on new implementations without testing may be a quick alternative that minimizes legal risk, but risks breaking applications.

If they add too little, people don't find it compelling, and if they change too much, businesses can't absorb (the new software), even if they do get it out the door. This is the 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't' situation that Microsoft finds itself in.

If there's one word that I use to sum up what I'm hearing from customers, it's resentment.

Immediate is pretty quick. It would be nice if there was some sort of time line that says you have to do it within six months or a year.

The issue is whether it's cheaper to support two operating systems and have lower operating costs, or spend the money on migration. Most companies don't have an automated way to do an OS upgrade, so a full-scale migration would be the higher cost.

They want the enterprise to have excellent Windows NT support, but they don't necessarily want to be the ones to provide it, ... Microsoft does want that involvement and to have more account control over their larger enterprise customers.

It's still a manual process. It's still something you have to remember to do. Any time you're relying on the user to remember something, there's a good chance that they'll forget.

Eventually, they will need to do consumer releases more often. They don't need to do enterprise releases as often, but they need to be predictable.

Do I have tools to get something this large onto my PCs without administrator intervention?