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As part of its efforts to encourage organizations to take the plunge, Microsoft late last month announced that it will ship the first service pack update of bug fixes and functionality tweaks for Vista during next year’s first quarter. The SP1 release will be accompanied by a third and final service pack for Windows XP, Vista’s six-year-old predecessor.

But it’s no slam-dunk that SP1 will have the desired effect on Vista’s corporate adoption rate, judging by the comments of IT managers such as Gregg “Skip” Bailey, CIO at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Bailey said his agency, which is known as the ATF, may stick with Windows XP for up to three more years, even though it plans to begin upgrading its 7,000 desktop PCs with Vista- capable hardware in January.

One of the big reasons for holding off on Vista, Bailey said, is that the ATF won’t have enough time between now and January to verify that all of its applications will run effectively on the new operating system.

The ATF, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice, is beginning a Vista compatibility testing program. But Bailey said that the planned desktop system replacements, which are part of the bureau’s normal three-year upgrade cycle for PCs, will be finished before testing is completed.

In addition, Bailey doesn’t see a compelling need to move quickly to Windows Vista. He said that although he thinks it offers advantages over Windows XP in the area of data security, the problems addressed by Vista are things “we have solved in other ways.”

Another CIO who works at a Texas bank that has more than 35,000 desktops running Windows XP said he plans to hold off on Vista for “at least” another year.

“Vista adds a lot of overhead and not much benefit. Honestly, we don’t see the value-add,” said the CIO, who asked not to be named.

He added that his reluctance to move to Vista is out of character, given that the bank uses Microsoft software across the board and he has a personal history as an early adopter of Windows releases. For example, he moved to Windows 2000 and Windows XP when they were first released to manufacturing.