I'm now running both a laptop and a desktop with Windows Vista. Both came with it pre-installed. I've kept my XP laptop as a backup, but am migrating files from the XP desktop over to the Vista one a few at a time. A number of friends have said they won't upgrade to Vista until they have to, which led me to post my thoughts. I wouldn't recommend updating to Vista for anyone just now. If you get a new machine, and it comes with it - fine. But don't run out and get it just to try it out. There are a number of reasons I say this....
Fist of all, it does use a lot of memory, especially if you want to run the cool Aero GUI. I kind of like it on the laptop, but I notice on the desktop (which has less RAM) it tends to be too much of a resource hog. It's nice being able to mouse over the taskbar and see the images of what you have open, but it's certainly not a necessity. If you're getting a new machine, make sure it has the resources to run Vista AND whatever programs you might want to all have open at the same time. Be prepard to spend the money for a decent amount of RAM or it will certainly fall short of any expectations (good or bad) you may have. Secondly, most users have become accustomed to, and can do, whatever common tasks they want to do. In Vista, simple everyday things have been renamed. Want to go to Add/Remove Programs? Well, now you need to look for Programs and Features. So you want a picture from your hard drive as your desktop wallpaper? Don't look in Display Properties - now you need to go to Personalization. This was probably the hardest part for me. In XP it was zip, zip, zip and I had completed whatever I wanted. In Vista it took a lot of getting used to new names, and depending on what I'm doing, I still have to struggle (and even do a Google) to find where what I want to do is located. If you use a speech program, you'll be a bit peeved. I've had a couple of friends who use them, and Vista does not play well with them yet. There's an internal speech recognition program I've not tried but have heard is OK. But if you want something that reads to you...wait a bit longer. While I've not had any troubles with software being backwards compatible, hardware has been a whole different issue. Even small things like a USB mouse which was Vista Certified didn't install easily. My bluetooth adapter and wireless headphones were even worse. And I've never managed to get my webcams working yet. The Logitech ones weren't even supported when I was trying, and the Miscrosoft Webcam I bought to solve the problem didn't function correctly even with the so-called Vista drivers installed. Twice I've had to let Vista tell me it couldn't find the drivers, then point it to my System32 folder and tell it to search there to find the drivers it's supposed to automatically know. There are still enough quirks I would not suggest paying money to upgrade an existing machine to Vista. Again, if it comes on a new one, you'll eventually adjust just as I did. But it's not a transition I really enjoyed by any stretch of the imagination. Even the Start button is now simply an icon in the lower left of the screen - so telling someone to click on Start now leads to the question....Where's the Start button?......
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