.: Reasons why you should upgrade to Windows Vista :.
One of primary design focuses for Vista was to create
the most secure environment possible. Many basic aspects
of Windows (such as running as an Administrator) have
been changed to help produce this environment. Not only
that, Internet Explorer 7 has many new features designed
to help protect you while you are online.
Microsoft has rewritten its TCP/IP network stack for
Vista to provide better performance. In addition, Vista
has dramatically changed how users interact with the network
devices in their PC and on their network. Now users can
take advantage of the new built-in tools to help diagnose
network problems. This will cut down on help desk calls
and in some cases, speed up support. The help desk can
use the information provided by the diagnostic tools to
help in their troubleshooting.
The Aero Glass interface in Windows Vista is a major
step forward for Windows in GUI design. Your Windows desktop
has never looked better than it will under a Vista version
supporting Aero Glass. Not only do things look better,
but the whole layout of the GUI has been changed to make
everything easier to find and more intuitive to use.
Most of us have already installed a third-party search
application, RSS reader, and sidebar or gadget dock in
Windows XP. These features have been integrated into the
OS itself and look fabulous under Aero Glass. You'll no
longer need to open a browser to see your stocks or check
on the weather. They will be constantly displayed (and
updated) from the Windows Sidebar. Searching for your
documents has never been easier, either, now that the
integrated search function in Windows supports the indexing
features of many newer search applications.
IT professionals are already familiar with Performance
Monitor, but now the power of this utility has been brought
to the masses. The new Windows Reliability and Performance
Monitor can easily be set by a user to automatically take
a baseline performance reading of their new PC. And when
performance begins to suffer, this tool will help then
diagnose what is causing the problem.
Many companies rely on Active Directory and its Group
Policy capabilities to enforce standards on their desktops.
Windows Vista makes this even better by including more
than 500 new Group Policy Objects.
As we've seen over the past few years, laptops are one
of the biggest security holes for IT departments. The
new BitLocker technology in Windows Vista can help mitigate
this risk by encrypting data and making the computer unusable
to anyone not in possession of the startup key (which
can be typed in or stored on a USB key).
Being the newest OS from Microsoft, Vista will be eligible
for support longer than any other Windows OS available.
Along with support from Microsoft, there will be support
from the Internet at large, as people will be using Windows
Vista for quite awhile into the foreseeable future. This
offers some peace of mind, knowing that you can get help
should you run into any issues.
Microsoft has a new way to help you boost performance
on your OS without requiring you to buy a lot of new expensive
hardware. You can now plug in removable memory (USB key,
compact flash, SD card, etc.) and assign all or part of
it to use ReadyBoost. This means that the memory will
be used as a prefetch section between your RAM and hard
drive. In testing, this has shown that it can offer a
great speed boost to many systems, especially those with
limited RAM.
DirectX 10 will be available only on Windows Vista. DirectX
is useful for a variety of graphics and video functions,
including business applications such as video conferencing.
And if you must have the latest and greatest in games,
the upgrade to Windows Vista is a no-brainer, as this
is the only way you can get it. DirectX 10 also claims
to fix the “small batch problem” from previous
versions. It has claimed that this could lead to DirectX
10 games that can perform six times better than the same
game running in DirectX 9 on Windows XP.
.: Reasons why you should NOT upgrade
to Windows Vista :.
Vista has the harshest hardware requirements of any Microsoft
operating system to date. To use all of the features of
Windows Vista, you need a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM,
and a DirectX 9-capable video card. Although this will
allow you to run everything, you'll get better performance
with a faster processor and more RAM. Since the Aero Glass
interface requires a DirectX 9-capable GPU, a lot of older
desktops and laptops won't be able to use Aero Glass,
even if they meet the other requirements.
Vista is a different animal from previous Windows operating
systems. Many of the tools are the same or similar, but
there is still a lot to learn. If your IT department is
already stretched thin, taking the time to learn and implement
Windows Vista may not be worth it right now.
Vista will be supported longer than XP, but XP still
has two years of mainstream support from Microsoft. And
a wealth of information on WinXP (and other operating
systems) is already available on the internet. If you
and your staff are comfortable with XP, there's little
reason to upgrade to Vista for continued support at the
moment.
Many popular applications do not work on Vista. Applications
like ITunes and Nero have issues running on Vista. In
fact, nearly every program involved in ripping or recoding
media have issues with Vista. If these major applications
are having compatibility issues, how many more small applications--those
you may use everyday--will have problems, too?
Peter Gutmann from the UK's The Register has called Window
Vista's new DRM the "longest suicide note in history."
Even though great strides have been made for PCs in the
living room as an entertainment device, Vista has put
crippling DRM into place when playing next generation
(HD-DVD and BluRay) content. When playing this content,
the component output and S/PDIF output is disabled, effectively
crippling Windows Vista as an entertainment system.
Windows Vista requires more hardware power to run--and
notebook battery life goes down the more you require of
your PC's hardware. Even just running the Aero Glass interface
will drain your battery faster, due to the additional
GPU processing. Any dedicated road warrior should consider
this before upgrading.
You can download many advanced search applications for
free. Even Microsoft has released one. Google has a nice
sidebar with a built-in RSS reader available for free.
Yahoo widgets (formally Konfabulator) allow you to change
your desktop into a virtual workspace with all manner
of data and tools available at your fingertips. Apple's
OS X is by far the leader in modern desktops. Even Aero
Glass cannot compare to the smoothness of OS X (which
is more than five years old). Sun's Project Looking Glass
can provide a minimal 3d desktop for XP for free.
Vista is expensive. There's no way around this. Microsoft
has tried to mitigate this by releasing different versions
of Vista with different price points. Unfortunately, many
of these are feature crippled and cause more confusion
than necessary. If you want Vista, expect to pay up to
$400 for one of the top versions.
DirectX 10 being Vista-only means that many gamers are
waiting patiently on the newest OS. Unfortunately, not
only will they have to pay for the OS, but they will also
have to buy a new video card that supports DirectX 10.
Currently, only NVIDIA’s 8800 chipset is DirectX
10 compatible, with the lowest model (the GTS) having
a retail price of $399.
Aero Glass is one of the cornerstones of Windows Vista,
but it puts a load on your video card that will affect
game performance. There are several reports of Microsoft
telling developers that current games will run 10 percent
to 15 percent slower on Vista than on Windows XP as a
result. It remains to be seen whether this performance
hit will continue to be an issue on games designed specifically
for Vista.
