Is now the right time to upgrade
to Windows Vista?
Vista is
finally out, and every
one wants to know whether they should upgrade. So before you rush out
and decide which flavour of Vista is for you...(There are 5 of them),
consider this:
Recently
my friend asked me at a family
gathering “Do I need to upgrade to Vista?”
He had heard all the media hype about Vista, and while he was not even
sure what Vista was about, he was convinced that upgrading to Vista
would be a good thing. My advice to him was a jumbled response ending
with no, which is also my answer to most other users. Here’s
why.
Many
existing PCs should be able
to run Vista reasonably well as long as they have a 1 GHz processor,
1 Gb of memory, and an Aero-compatible graphics card. A memory
upgrade
is relatively cheap to upgrade if the computer has the
processor. The
official specs are lower than this, and I know some PC manufacturers
are recommending more memory, but for the sake of argument, lets assume
that we can get away with 1 GHz/ 1 Gb spec.
In the
case of my friend it
wasn’t really a hardware issue. His 1GHz machine/
512 MB could easily
be upgraded to 1 Gb or more of RAM, but what benefits would he get by
paying for and installing Vista? He uses his computer to surf the web,
send E-mails, and writes the occasional letter,. I really struggled to
come up with an answer for him.
It looks
really cool and has a
new and improved interface, (which i don't really like) and has built
in desktop widgets if you like that kind of thing, I said looking over
his shoulder as I
racked my brain for something to say. He looked at me blankly.
What's wrong with good old XP (now that they have fixed it)
In fact
come to think of it, I’m
not even sure what benefits Vista would offer a more advanced user like
myself. Don’t get me wrong, I think Vista is a good product,
but
there’s nothing so compelling about it that makes me think, I
really
want that right now. I am going to stick with XP for the time being, Don’t get me wrong I like
Microsoft and some of
their products and I suppose that long term Vista will become the
industry standard but I for one will give it a good few years to let
them iron out any teething troubles etc. which have not come to light
yet and give Microsoft and other manufacturers time to make drivers etc
compatible.
That
brings me nicely to the
next factor to consider, is the true cost of installing Vista
is much
higher than its retail price? Don’t believe
Microsoft’s assurances that
upgrading is a smooth process. Already there are many reports of
hardware drivers not working properly and software not working
properly. Broad Band Modems on-line games and iTunes are recent examples.
What alternatives are available?
For me
it comes down to this:
the unclear benefits of Vista don’t justify the possible
problems with
existing hardware and software, and the resulting hassle,
inconvenience, and downtime. Especially when you can download a totally
FREE copy
of Ubuntu the NEW Linux Operating System. Burn the
downloaded image onto a CD and boot from the CD...Give it 20 minutes
and its all installed and working great!
On the
other hand, if you like
tinkering with your computer or maybe have a spare one and have time on
your hands, by all means upgrade to Vista.
My final piece of advice is
this, maybe you should wait until you buy your next PC or Laptop etc.
which will have Vista pre-installed... My friend didn’t like
this
suggestion as he only purchased his machine just over a year ago.
For
an in-depth look at Vista and the minimum requirements...click here
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