Just when it seemed most everyone in the tech industry was gearing up for the release of Windows 7 this Christmas, the U.S. Army has announced it will soon upgrade its PC systems to the much-maligned Windows Vista operating system. It's surprising but welcome news for Microsoft, which has been criticized for Vista's faults since the OS release in 2007.

The decision to upgrade United States Army PC desktops from Windows XP to Windows Vista was announced yesterday, and early reports suggest the military plans to complete the change by next year.

The announcement is good news for Microsoft, which has faced numerous studies suggesting that business and home users alike are planning to skip Vista altogether, opting to make the leap from XP all the way to Windows 7.

Rubbing salt in the wound were the Fiasco awards, which chose Windows Vista over Google's Second Life rival 'Lively' and the stunted One Laptop Per Child campaign for top "honors".

Fiasco or Not, Vista Much Improved

However, Microsoft has worked hard to improve the compatibility and security problems afflicting Vista. The company has also assured potential Windows 7 buyers that the upgrade from Vista to Win7 will be easier than the transition made from XP.

Clearly, the U.S. Army bought into that. In addition to the operating system overhaul, it will also upgrade all copies of Microsoft Office 2003 to Office 2007. That means it won't wait until the 2010 version; reports suggest this decision was made for security concerns, a point Microsoft may someday soon need to comment on. (Source: neoseeker.com)

Army Upgrade Includes 700,000+ PCs

As you might expect, this marks an enormous victory for Microsoft's attempts to keep Vista popularity up prior to the release of Windows 7 sometime this holiday season. The U.S. Army switch marks one of the biggest mass-upgrades in the history of American computing. Sources reveal that the Army could make the switch on all of its three-quarters of a million desktop PCs. (Source: techradar.com)

Reports suggest the military has been pondering this decision for some time, settling upon Vista because of its superior data encryption features.