Re: Windows Vista
The following was just emailed to me by my business program guru.
All... Copied from SmallBizResource:
The Truth About Vista
John Mello runs Windows Vista Adviser and reports on the 'unsurprising' results
January 30, 2007
The last time I was faced with a Windows operating system upgrade I took the coward's way out and bought a new computer.
Since my current computer is less than eight months old, I don't think I'll be buying a new one just to install Vista when it's released tomorrow. Neither do I think that I'll be upgrading to the new operating system anytime soon. Nevertheless, on a lark, I decided to run Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Adviser on my machine to see if it could handle the new operating system. I'd like to say that the results were surprising but they weren't.
The adviser recommended that I uninstall my disc burning and multimedia management software before installing Vista. "After upgrading, you can reinstall the program," Microsoft cheerily advised, "but it might not work as expected due to compatibility issues."
It added that my scanner wouldn't work with the new operating system and then proceeded to identify nine programs on my system including three made by Microsoft that might have "minor compatibility issues" after upgrading to Vista.
My woes and many more will be awaiting those brave souls who attempt to upgrade their legacy systems to Vista, Chris Null, Yahoo! Tech's "Working Guy" advisor, tells me. "Most people aren't going to be running upgrade adviser," he maintains. "They're going to grab the software and try to install it themselves. Then they're going to be shocked when a lot of things don't work."
"A lot of these computers that people will be trying to install Vista on just aren't ready to run it," he continues. "They don't have the physical requirements to meet Vista's high-end needs."
He says that the minimum requirements for Vista are one gigabyte of RAM, a dual-core microprocessor and a graphics card that's 18 months old or less.
The confusion begins right at the store shelf. When Microsoft released Windows XP, I thought bifurcating the operating system into "home" and "professional" editions was confusing, but Vista is even worse. There are four versions of the operating system: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate. Actually, there are only three versions because Home Basic is more of a marketing ploy than an operating system.
"They're trying to show you that you can get into Vista for under $100 by upgrading to the Home Basic version, but after using it for more than about 10 minutes, no one will be satisfied with that and will immediately want to upgrade," Null says.
Who really needs to upgrade to Vista? "In a nutshell, nobody," Null declares.
"There's one small group of people who will need to upgrade. That's high-end gamers.
Windows Vista will include the new DirectX 10 and you need that to play some of the new greatly anticipated games that will be coming out."
"When it comes to upgrading to Vista," he adds, "it's a huge undertaking that people really need to seriously consider before they jump into it."
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Better to buy a new computer!!
