Microsoft wants you to migrate to Vista. That should come as no surprise. But the company seems to be willing to shoot itself repeatedly in the foot to get you to make the move -- first by dissing its old operating system, and then by demonstrating its ability to force patches to XP down even enterprise customers' throats. Ed Foster writes about how Microsoft has been stealthily pushing automatic updates to Wind Ed Foster writes about how Microsoft has been stealthily pushing automatic updates to Windows users who have turned auto-updating off. If you do systems management, you know how many bad surprises an unexpected software update can hold–like, for example, breaking installed software. So, having Redmond decide what you should have running on your clients for you is not necessarily a desirable situation — and might be why so many companies are still running Windows 2000 clients in industries that require software stability. So, how to pry reluctant customers off a stable operating system, other than surprising them with unauthorized downloads? Tell them how much they’ll save on unexpected support costs by moving to your new operating system! Software DevelopmentSmall and Medium Business