Making The Switch

Question:

What are the advantages of Windows Vista® and should I upgrade?

Answer:

Windows Vista®, the new operating system by Microsoft®, offers many new features that make good sense. It offers a completely new level of security, reliability and ease of use. The interface is intuitive and attractive. There are many added features that are both useful and well thought out.

The most important aspect of Windows Vista®, in my opinion, is tighter security. Microsoft really did a good job here. Their previous operating systems had many security flaws that could be exploited by malicious code and/or hackers. Viruses and spyware were simply something that you had to deal with. I can’t say how many people call me, because their machine is completely unusable due to viruses and spyware. In many cases all that can be reasonably done is to simply wipe the whole system clean and start over (yes, they would lose all the data that is not backed up). Even worse, on many occasions, the user’s backup copies are infected as well. If I restore from the infected backup, I am simply reinstalling the virus too. Not good. Sometimes, it is possible to remediate an infected machine, but it is usually costly and difficult to be certain the virus has been completely eradicated.

So, Vista’s® high security is good news indeed. I have not heard of any significant threat, at the time of this writing. This doesn’t mean that Vista® is invincible, however, it is extremely encouraging. Believe me, I would love to stop writing articles about viruses! With that said, I agree with the philosophy, “Trust God, but lock the car doors.” So, even though Vista® is apparently virus resistant, I still recommend a good anti-virus program such as Nod32 or Grisoft AVG.

Regarding the new features in Vista®, there are quite a few changes. It will take a little getting used to, but in all, the interface is pretty intuitive, and if you can use Windows XP®, you will be able to use Vista® without too much trouble. The interface (how you interact with the computer) is clean, with smooth animations and outstanding graphics. The windows even become transparent, so you can see what is underneath. There is a cool sidebar that allows you to add “Gadgets” such as; a calculator, a clock, random photos, RSS feed viewer and many others. You can customize it with whatever Gadgets that you find useful. There are many other goodies, but I will let you discover them yourself.

There are many different versions of Vista®. This can be a little confusing. There is; Ultimate, Home Premium, Home Basic, Business and Enterprise. You can see a comparison of features here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx.

So, when should you upgrade? While some people like to get a jump on new technology, many people like to wait to upgrade. If you have important files and applications on your computer, then you may want to be cautious. I have several computers at home. This made it easy for me. I started using Vista® on my personal-non-business-computer home for several months now. It was like testing the water with my toe. So far, so good, I have been very happy with it. I then installed it on my son’s computer to see how it runs in a gaming environment. My son (he is ten, and therefore an expert on everything…) loves it. I am still running my business computer on XP, though I believe I will probably upgrade it before long. My computer here at SBAOR is also running XP, but again, I will upgrade it soon. If you don’t have the option of testing on a less important system (and even if you do), then I recommend backing up your entire hard drive before making the switch.

There are a few issues that I have noticed. This is a big step in computing, and therefore there will be some programs that aren’t going to work properly in Vista. Most notably, Peachtree 2006 (and previous versions) is incompatible, and WinZip doesn’t work quite right. There are many, many others, so, before you upgrade be sure to check with the manufacturer of any important program you will need to run to make sure it is compatible. Outside of that, Vista® prompts you when you want to start an application (while this is a good idea from a security standpoint, it is slightly annoying, but I will give it to them as it is much less annoying then dealing with a virus-ridden machine.)

So, in summary, Vista® is a well thought out, secure operating system that is intuitive and elegant. However, the choice is yours. If you have mission critical applications, you may want to wait awhile and be cautious. Check with manufactures for compatibility and/or patches for Vista®. Even though it is much more secure than anything Microsoft® has put out, still use a good anti-virus program!