Yeah, unless you are Google, IT equipment sucks donkey balls in the big corps. Especially the banks. Still stuck on IE7 at our one. Sigh.
> "I remember years ago, when I joined Google, I looked at the personal technology that Google gave to its people. Google allowed people to use whatever they thought was relevant to them, when everyone else gave people a black laptop and a BlackBerry and said, “You are going to do it our way."
The example you gave - the pain of sysadmins using the Windows desktop - is perfect. But let me add a different one: the big corp where I work decided that iOS apps were needed. I can't even begin the describe how long and cumbersome the process of acquiring a Mac was! It was so ridiculous that we used personal devices for a time, and then a Hackintosh.
It's one thing having to use Windows for development. I've done it, you can work around lots of issues with Cygwin and other separate tools that enhances the development unfriendliness of Windows. If you are developping in Java, it's even less of an issue as Java itself and most of its IDEs are cross-platform.
But being so locked down that the only thing to do development with is Notepad++ (you can't even run vim or emacs?), that's actually so far beyond that even a complete non-tech person should be able to see that this is harmful to your productivity.
What you do need is a reasonable set of tools to be installed and a quick (under an hour) way to get items installed or updated.
What about a VM ?
Approach it from the tools use, do people use pads and pens or do they use Word?
Depending on the company's hardware VM performance could be a real issue. You'd be surprised how many developer jobs are done on old Windows XP boxes. Big companies typically do upgrades in multiyear cycles.
It's really easy to do if you need it.
I would quit or require a very high payment.