"We manage 6,000 desktops and 1,500 laptops," Taylor said. "At $300 per PC per year, that should add up to $2 million in savings. The only way we could actually save that would be to eliminate 30 people, which we're not going to do."

On the other hand, Taylor, whose staff has been testing Vista on 100 PCs for more than 18 months as part of Microsoft's Technology Adoption Program, agreed that many of Vista's capabilities will boost automation and manageability, freeing up his staff's time for more valuable projects.

For example, he pointed to Vista's beefed-up image management service, which will let systems administrators create personalized clone backups of PC configurations and then electronically reinstall Vista and all applications on end-user systems if necessary. Taylor said his staff will be able to avoid driving to 200-plus buildings in the 530-square-mile county, which includes Atlanta, to reinstall Windows and other software.

He also applauded Vista's User Access Control feature, which strips users of administrator privileges. That should be a major deterrent to spyware problems, Taylor said. He plans to start rolling out Vista as soon as possible and expects the county to finish upgrading all of its PCs by the end of next year.

Gartner Inc. analyst Michael Silver said there are big "ifs" in the cost-savings picture painted by Microsoft and Getronics. For example, he expects many end users to resist having their software installation privileges and other administrative rights taken away. "You'll have knowledge workers calling you every 10 minutes to install some piece of software," Silver warned.