Windows XP XFCE

[Carl]

On Thursday 10 August 2006 7:55 am, Vincent Groenewold wrote:
> How would it be possible for 400 people not to notice a big difference,
> that's rediculous. A GUI isn't
> just about the looks, XFCE handles quite a bit different in many ways.
>
> On 10/08/06, Stavros Giannouris <stavrosg2002 at freemail.gr> wrote:
> > Στις Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:42:07 -0700
> >
> > Ο/Η ninjabytes <ninjabytes at gmail.com> έγραψε:
> > > we have a total of 400 desktops that currently run on windows xp, we
> > > are migrating over Linux+XFCE on it and we dont want our users to
> > > notify the big diference you know, so we want to keep that XP-look
> > > still, thats mainly why.
> > >
> > > Again, know of a good XP theme?
> >
> > There are the GTK & Xfwm themes 'RendmondXP' already included with
> > Xfce. Are these lacking in any respect?
> >
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Stavros Giannouris                          Jabber: stavrosg at jabber.org
> >


Understanding that you may be the tech person who has to do management's 
bidding...

-You may be stuck with the limited view that the desktop needs to resemble 
WinXP closely. 
-You may be stuck with having to cover for a poor management job (disclosure: 
most of my career has been in management). Instead of getting people on board 
and soliciting their support, a move is dictated and negativity punished. Too 
bad that there's so much of that around. If this is the case, resemblance to 
XP is a minor problem compared to other drains on morale.

A seasoned veteran of the tech wars once told me...
"If you can't fix it, feature it."

The first thing is to get management on board with the need to sell the change 
to the unwashed 400. An XP window theme will not cover over a significantly 
different total experience. With the right message, it is possible to have 
people going head over heels with excitement because they have better tools.

It is possible to imagine many reasons for the switch from XP to Linux/XFCE. A 
compelling one for the users is savings, the company--and everyone in 
it--gets more bang for the buck.

Recommended message from management
We are switching the way your computers work:
	- to save money so that we don't have to send people home
	- to save the time it takes to manage all the crud from the Internet
	- to avoid the time and expense of switching everyone over to a totally
		new system every 4 years...remember the switch from WinNT?
	- because the new system takes less of the computers' resources so that
		it will seem faster and more responsive for you. Just managing the look of
		the old system takes more computer resources than this entire new system.
	- we are going to keep our money in Greece rather than sending it to the U.S.

We are making this change because it makes us a more effective company. It's 
important to us that you embrace this change and do what you can to make it 
work. After a few days of working with the new system, most people find it as 
easy to use as the old system.

One thing about the new system is that you can easily change the way it looks. 
There are many different themes to choose from. Not everyone wants to have 
their work space look just like everyone else's.

We apologize for thinking that we might be able to trick you into thinking 
that the new system is the same as the old one. That wasn't very smart on our 
part--the new one is a lot better.