Buying or Upgrading a Windows Computer?

Should I buy Vista?

In a word...

Maybe

I’ve read many experts’ opinions; I’ve used Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate and Vista Business since the Vista Release Candidate was set loose about 3 years ago. I've also been using the latest beta of Windows 7. I've also extensively tested Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and I've spent several months using only the Ubuntu 9.04 Linux distribution.

Here’s my view:

Yes, buy Vista if you:

absolutely need a new PC and you're not prepared to wait until October 22^nd 2009 for the Windows 7 release;
and the vendor swears an oath in blood that you will get a free upgrade to Windows 7.
and you don't mind the hassle of upgrading when your Windows 7 DVD arrives;
AND you have, or will have, at least 2GB of RAM, at least a 256MB graphics card and at least a 2GHz CPU.

No, if you:

don't mind waiting until October 22^nd. Vista has overcome its initial problems, but the new Windows 7 is a big improvement.
don’t have a grunty machine as described above.

Nobody should be selling Microsoft Windows Vista machines at present without the inclusion of a free upgrade to Windows 7.

Windows 7 is sleeker and faster than Vista given the same hardware. You need it. Honest.

Vista had its problems: it was released to market before it was fully formed and it garnered unto itself a bad reputation. That's all in the past. Subsequent updates have fixed it. Mostly. It's too early to be certain, but thousands of users have been trialling Windows 7 for months and their is widespread acceptance that this time Microsoft have got it right.

If you’re determined to run Vista on your current Windows XP PC you can download, install and run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor from here. This small utility will tell you whether or not your current hardware and/or software will have compatibility problems. The Advisor only works with Windows XP 32-bit version (which is what most people have).

Beware

Microsoft are very optimistic with their hardware requirements. These are the people who said XP will run with a 233MHz CPU and 64MB of RAM - yeah, right.

Some software won’t work, or has minor compatibility problems under Vista. Despite rumours to the contrary this is not common. It was initially, but it's not now. Usually there are newer versions of problematic software which are perfectly OK. These problems occur with all new operating systems, Windows XP initially caused me more strife than Vista did.

The only software which I've found won't work under Vista 32-bit:

Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007

Corel Draw 12 wouldn't work initially, but subsequent Vista updates have fixed that.

Won't work under 64-bit Vista

Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 & 10
Google Desktop (there's a workaround)
Sony Ericsson PC Suite — Update! the latest version from Sony Ericsson is OK.

I have a wide range of software running on Vista 32 and 64-bit machines – everything of any importance to me in fact. Check the programs I have running here.

Virtual Machines

Some hardware drivers aren’t available for Vista. You may not be able to install some utilities like older printer utilities or camera software. You can get around this to some degree if you wish by installing Sun's free VirtualBox, VMware's Server, or Microsoft's equally free Virtual PC 2007. These programs enable you to install Windows XP or 98 in a virtual machine inside Vista to run your old stuff. See here. But MS Virtual PC can only be used on Vista Business, Ultimate and Enterprise versions — not Home Basic or Home Premium — and it has its own limitations, particularly access to USB devices. USB mice, keyboards and external drives aren't a problem, but printers and scanners are. VirtualBox has no such limitations and is a great VM.

Virtual machines use RAM from your main system, so you need 2GB at least. An even better virtualization program is VMware Workstation, but it's not free.

Don’t waste your money on Vista Home Basic.

Having said all that, I have Vista upgrades running with no problems on my desktop and laptop. Nevertheless, a significant minority have problems ranging from minor irritants to total breakage. Here’s my surprisingly trouble free experience with Vista 64-bit version. Some more observations on Vista here on MistyWindow.com

If you can, wait for Windows 7

If you have a Release Candidate Windows 7 DVD you can try it before buying but at this late stage it's not worth th bother. You shouldn't install it on a production machine unless you have a good image to fall back on, remember that the RC licence runs out early 2010. You can install it as an upgrade over your current Vista installation — not sure about XP — but when you install the new fulll version you'll need to do a clean installation.

It's worth the wait

Windows 7 is worth waiting for. It’s streamlined Vista on steroids, I originally predicted here that it would be released in September 2009. I wasn't far out — it'll be in the shops on October 22^nd.

I installed Windows 7 32-bit over my Dell laptop's Vista installation and I've done a clean installation of Windows 7 64-bit on my tower machine. I haven't found any problems at all. The usability improvements are significant. Vista users like myself, who suffered through the teething problems, are going to be justifiably annoyed that this is not going to be a free upgrade.

Notable advances are the excellent new taskbar and the improved network setup. There are a number of useful new ways to organize on-screen windows using Winkey keyboard shortcuts or mouse movements. These improvements are sufficient to make this new operating system desirable, but not so radical that it requires a 10-day course to familiarize Vista users. Windows 7 is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

It’s what Windows Vista should’ve been.

A few months ago I suggested here that Windows 7 would be released earlier than most were predicting because:

the beta was due to expire on August the 1^st, I suspected that they were hoping for an RTM release before then;
there wasn't much left to fix;
Microsoft would be anxious to redeem themselves ASAP after the Vista fiasco;
and they’d be very reluctant to let another Christmas go by without Windows 7 in the stores.

Right on all counts. The recession won't help, but Microsoft should be onto a winner nevertheless.

Vista started out as a bit of a dog, but with SP1 and subsequent updates it’s now a good OS and given adequate hardware it’s better than XP. If you're happy with it, there's no need to upgrade, but if you don't mind shelling out a hundred or two dollars for an upgrade, the improvememts are worth the trouble and expense.

If you do buy it I recommend that you go for the 64-bit version. 64-bit software is the future and all recent CPUs are 64-bit capable. buying Windows 7 64-bit will future-proof you. If your machine has the specs required to run Vista you almost certainly have a 64-bit capable CPU. If you’re a memory hog with 4GB or more of RAM in your machine, 32-bit Windows limits your available system RAM to somewhere between 2.8GB and 3.5GB. See here for an explanation. 64-bit operating systems have no such limitations.

Sales people may try to talk you out of 64-bit. Many of them don't know what they're talking about. Read my explanation on the link above then see if they understand the issue.

Most current software is 64-bit compatible and it won't be long before most programs will be available in 64-bit editions. .

mistywindow.com