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Lately I've been getting a lot of questions about Windows Vista. Microsoft's descriptions of Vista are decidedly (and understandably) biased, so I thought I would use this page to express my (hopefully unbiased) observations of Vista, as of today (October 17, 2008).
First I will admit that I was (and still am) perfectly happy with Windows XP. To summarize, I think there was no need for an entirely new operating system (except Microsoft's need to make more profit). But then, I also drive a 1991 Dodge Dakota truck that I think is the pinnacle of automotive development, so maybe I'm wrong.
After working with NT for 3 years, then XP for 5 or 6 years, participating in the development of NT/XP applications and methods, I feel most comfortable with the XP operating system. I have lived through the literally hundreds of software patches, fixes and improvements that made XP, and applications for XP, a stable and reliable operating system platform. Since my customers depend on their computers to be "always there", that was, and will always be, the most important thing to me.
I believed (and still do) that XP would do anything a computer user would need, and that a new operating system would make about as much sense as shoes on a snake. Frankly, when I first looked at Vista (in beta form) a year ago, I was unimpressed. I read all the reviews and loaded the first beta release at the CBC computer lab. I was able to work with it, and underneath the new facade, it had a lot of the old XP subroutines, so I was hopeful that Microsoft didn't mess it up too much. My greatest hope was the Microsoft would fix the few remaining bugs and awkward procedures in XP, which would be a great help to me and thousands of other support techs.
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So, let's cut to the chase: What does the average user need to know about Vista?
1. If your computer is less than 4 years old and is running XP, you can rest easy, there is no need to upgrade for at least 2 more years. In fact, if your computer is more than 2 years old, Vista might not run on it at all!
2. If you buy a new computer you can still get XP on it - but it might cost extra!
3. If you buy a new computer with Vista on it, there's nothing to be afraid of. It will take only a couple of hours to learn how to do the same things you now do in XP.
4. But if you are in a business that uses a proprietary database, for example, you will not want to buy any Vista workstations until you find out for sure that your application will run on Vista. As an example, I support a shop that uses Microsoft Schedule Plus for interactive appointment calendars. Schedule Plus will run fine on XP, but will not run on Vista. Also, their proprietary database would not run in Vista until the providers got around to making the necessary changes, but now it runs okay. The moral of the story: Check it out before you buy. Give me a call and I'll help - 509-588-4684.
5. If you are into photography, videos, music and movies, Vista was made for you (home premium and ultimate versions). It has the old Windows Media Center built-in, along with fabulous new tools for photo editing, music playback, and movie editing too. Definitely fun and worth the price of admission.
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So why do I keep showing this photo on my site? Well, this is the view out my back window, and I love it.
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