Windows Vista, To Upgrade Or Not?

By Shane Goll

Since the release of Windows Vista many people have been arguing over its positives and negatives, and whether to make the "upgrade" or stay on Windows XP. I've been reading a lot about the pros and cons of Vista lately, and when I first made the switch on my laptop I really did not realize how many flaws Vista has in it, now through some rather disappointing experiences I do.

Vista without a doubt looks pretty with Microsoft's new sleek interface "Aero" running on it out of the box, but it comes with a price. It requires both 1GB RAM and a 128mb graphics card to be installed. This really isn't a concern to those who have recently bought a computer within the last year, possibly two, but for the rest of us this with 3+ year old computers we're better off buying a whole new system with Vista preloaded than upgrading our computer and then buying the upgrade. Windows Vista is truly a resource hog compared to XP which requires a mere 128mb RAM to run. On top of that, to install the Ultimate package you have to have a whopping 40gb to commit to it, while XP professional takes just over 1gb.

The upgrade does have better security out of the box than XP, but it is causing quite a few drawbacks in software compatibility errors. Many programs that are fully compatible with XP wont run on Vista correctly without several patches, if at all. Some Mircosoft Certified software such as the Windows Media Encoder wont even run correctly. This is becoming a larger problem by the day as more and more programs are becoming incompatible with the OS. There is also the new implementation of "Run as a system Administrator" when opening several programs and using their features. Every single time you open a program you will get the "Windows needs your permission to continue" message box, it really does become a nuisance, and to make things even worse if you disable it some programs designed to be Vista-compatible wont work!

Microsoft also decided to take there packaging idea "home, professional", and expand it even further. The upgrade comes in four packages now, Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business, and of course the only one even worth the purchase is Ultimate which will set you back $270 for the upgrade or $360 for the full version. The other versions lack the note worthy features in Windows Vista, and seem to be just a pretty looking version of Windows XP.

There is also the problem with the interface as compared to the rest of the Windows operating systems. While it still functions similar to the rest of the Windows family almost everything is renamed or somewhere else than it was in XP. It took me a couple days just to get the hang of what everything has been renamed to.

On top of all this, it doesn't really bring anything new to the table, you can get the upgrades for IE7, WMP11, etc for XP free online. The unique features that it does bring aren't that special either, such as the SideShow (the right hand bar on the desktop). While it looks neat and there are several things you can add to it, unless you spend all your time staring at your desktop you aren't going to be using it for anything. Oh and it will cover up your desktop icons on the far right-hand side making them unclickable unless you disable the SideShow, this becomes particularly annoying when changing your screen resolution.

I already mentioned that it was a resource hog, but it gets worse when playing graphic-intensive games, if they even run at all in the first place (try running as administrator to fix this error). Some people are having to lower their resolution to play some computer games smoothly just because of the amount of resources it takes. It is equally as bad for the office worker who is thinking about getting Vista for their workplace. If your company uses certain unique programs, there is a possibility that it will be incompatible with it, and most companies are telling their employees to hold off on Vista and stick with XP.

Overall, Vista looks pretty, has some alright features, and that's about all for now. If you are looking to buy a new computer I suggest holding off on Vista for a while, and just using XP. There really is no compelling reason to upgrade no matter what genre of computer user you fall into casual, work, gaming, etc.

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