Discussion on:

10 reasons you should upgrade to Vista (and 10 reasons you shouldn't)

you forgot printer/scanner/sound etc compatibility. If the mfgs do not provide Vista drivers for all their printers/scanners/sound/ consumers and business have bought, they will not work. That means businesses and home users will have to go out and buy new printers/scanners/sound cards and whatever else that will work with Vista.

I have jyst checked so now my $1800 each for 10 computers will requite 2 printers, 1 x Scanner, and a new digital camera SORRY BILL and MS NO WAYI will stay with XP PRO and all I have NOW.

Yup ... same here. I played with Vista on a spare machine here at the office. Pretty but a solution looking for a problem.

WinXP Pro is solid as a rock and I'm sticking with it (and Office 2003, etc.) until I have absolutely no other choice. Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) I have works with it. Upgrading is necessary at times but this ain't one of those times. I don't feel like spending more money to solve problems I don't have - particularly with my personal equipment. Enough is enough for now.

-CB

Vista has native (built-in) support for an amazingly wide range of devices. Drivers won't be an issue for most printers and scanners.

This is the important question you have to answer to yourself if you upgrade or not. If you are running a business will this upgrade increase productivity enabling you to recover increased cost and and a bit extra for the hassle an upgrade will probably be? If you are a home user will you benifit from better performance?. An upgrade for me will neither make me more money or improve my home computing experience so I will be keeping my money and spend it on something I will benifit from. You may in your circumstances get a different answer to me so it is up to the individual to make up their own mind.

The only thing about Native support is it will NOT mak fullk use of the printers/scanner/etc functions.

Sorry BILL your loss.

Things might sort of work, but you lose the extras you got the hardware in the first place.

Never mind printers etc, how about my display ?

... On what you want your Vista-based machine to do. I've been running RC1 for months on a machine that was intended for XP. The assessment from here is that Vista has a lot of promise and a couple of (IMO) stunning improvements, like its search capability and the ease with which one can manage information.
As far as additional cost, I will spend 'x' dinero for the OS (which I would have spent on an XP upgrade this year), and the ''y' dollars for an upgraded GUI board. In fact, I'm going from my PC's OEM (ATI X200) to their X1300 card - which will allow the Media Center to operate. Being retired military, I guess real-life warrior stuff kinda tops video virtuality.
I will mate Vista (whichever) with Office 2007, which will support lots of work-as-hobby - or work on demand.
I found Vista RC1 largely self-intutitve and so "ET-call-homish" that a readme or field manual is not needed. Its almost ring-down connection with the Mothership in Redmond would almost be scarey - if it weren't so neat.
No - I'll not be at Circuit City, elbowing for best position at zero-dark-one on 30 Jan. Maybe at about 0900, after a cup of Joe and having read the local paper.
The worst part of 1/30/2007 is gonna be remembering how to uninstall OneCareLive that now protects RC1 - and reinstalling it for young Vista for Real.

Have fun, because it all depends....

Danzig6

I'm sayin this coz most of current computer needs upgrade to run Vista, which makes it highly unfeasible in current scenario. Beside this MS is making every effort to enhance XP security. So I'm not finding many excuses to go for Vista upgrade.

My Vista Ultimate - upgraded from Home Premium in about March 07 - has worked fine with no external driver installation on the following printers:
Lexmark Z605 deskjet
Lexmark 4270 (all-in-one)
Lexmark 4530 (all-in-one; Wi-Fi equipped)

I had to load s/w for an HP3940 deskjet - but w/o resulting probs.

I had problems with HP K60 (all-in-one) but I was able to load the printer's software to the extent I could get the print function to work. Fax, scan and copier were no joy, as was the master unit controller function. However, the K60 is an older unit and its limitations came as no surprise.

Lexmark's Wi-Fi capable printers are super. I have not had problem one with mine. I like it better than the 4200 series AiO. However, all printers are (expensive) ink guzzlers!

Steve in PA

Did you have any problems installing your Lexmark using XP? We have two computers, one with Vista and one with XP Media Center Edition. We installed the printer on the computer with Vista with no problem but every time I try to install on the xp computer I get a nasty blue screen. When I do the install I'm choosing the option that the printer is already set up and I'm installing to a new computer. Thanks for any insight you may have.

Cassandra

MS borks up .Net in Vista and almost all code that does certain API calls won't work.

Vista is a real gem....kinda like Windows 386 and Windows ME

Advantage #10 says DX10 support will boost game performance, while Disadvantage #10 says it will hurt game performance. Uh...can you say conflicting statements?

Maybe you should re-read reasons #10 for and against using Vista. Reason #10 for states that with DirectX, performance gains could be significant.

Reason #10 against says that with AG enable, you will see a performance hiot with games. The solution, disable AG. Simple enough.

I am running Windows Vista (Business) with Aero, and whenever you run programs that interface directly with DirectX rather than going through the usual windows forms procedures, so for example VirtualPC, all games but not office applications etc, Aero disables itself in order in order to reduce strain on the graphics card.

I can bet you that I can take a UNIX person from decades ago and pluk him down at a unix console and he will have no problem creating scripts, or looking at MAN pages. You already have a secure system with open source applications and no execess baggage.

Word to the wise.

You have the opportunity to wean youself from the MS udder. Do it now and go to an OS (UNIX, LINUX)that you will not have you re-inventing your IT department every few years to satisfy MS requirements a "new" OS every few years.

When the technology is evolving towards slim clients to save on costs, vista proposes to be a bigger hardware hog than it's predecessors.

What is VISTA.. my opinion only.. take all the bug fixes, security fixes and other stuff and put them into a new wrapper and call it VISTA with all new bugs, and security holes. But wait, VISTA 2 or Celestial is just around the corner that will fix all these problems with VISTA but with newer bugs and newer security holes..... I could go on.

Forget about the user friendly interface that VISTA proposes and ask yourself this most important question? Does VISTA or an MS product have an INTUITIVE interface?

It is good to be in UNIX or LINUX environment as it already supports the features that u get in windows vista in terms of security and development environments. LINUX has lot more features to play with, if u can prove urself a good programmer playing with kernels.

But I can say windows vista is good for home and application based .net catchy users and not developers. AND THE MAJORITY ARE THESE TYPE OF USERS IN THE WORLD.

I can say that Microsoft is good in studying market.

In my opinion, for 400 doalrs you lose the value of using Mp3 rippers, Nero, slower gaming, and has more holes in security then the snakes got bends.

In my opinion, for those of us that chose, we lose Media Center all to geather???

Sorry MS you just ticked me off by taking a few of my rights away.

I have the right to run rippers so as long As I am not using them for illegal puropses

I have the right to chose what software I want for burning my own videos and such.

I have the right to have soft ware taht is not a mennace to power requiremnts or uncessary demands of power.

Unix is sounding pretty good right now. as is Linux.

I am tired of all this upgrade and update Bull pucky and Iam tired of updates that start rendering my perfectly legit software useless.

boy this company has went to pot since Gates Left.

I am just a consumer but your pretty pakaging is like luring the fly to the hunny. I research befor I buy. and for now I like XP Media Center.

It sounds like and expensive version of....don't shoot me....WINDOWS ME....

In practical terms, you have right to do whatever you want, even if it is illegal. This is your choice and you should be the one taking responsibility for your actions, for better or for worse.

By taking away your ability to make your own decisions about whether to rip or not to rip( etc. ), society is preventing people from learning how to be responsible.

In the old West (USA), you could walk around town with a revolver in your belt. You could be responsible or irresponsible with it, but you also know the other guy may have a revolver, so you were more likely to be responsible.

Today, only the criminals can freely carry certain types of arms with them, and they know the law-abidin g citizen probably doesn't have one. Kind of tips the scales in favor of criminals, eh?

Spoken like someone who isn't familiar with FreeBSD. Yep.

The DRM and video ripping thing concerns me. I work for a large church and a big part of my job is converting audio and video. We create and producing much of our own audio and video. We also pay for permission to duplicate Christian media. Editing and converting media from format to format, that's pretty much all I do 40 hours/week.

The aspect of upgrading hardware doesn't scare me at all. I build myself a brand new PC every two years regardless. I hand my old one down to my wife. Doesn't everybody do this? If not - WHY NOT! Sheesh, that's one of the advanages of using a MS OS. I get to constantly try out the latest and greatest hardware and software.

Bottom line - I'll stick with XP like I did with W2K, wait until Vista has the bugs worked out and there's a wealth of info online. I just built a new PC last Christmas. I got another year and a half to go!

Thanks for the forum!

If you do not have a reason to upgrade, then why upgrade? And is it really an upgrade? That is subjective. For non-gamers, DX10 is not a selling point, for business-oriented users, a pretty interface also is not an issue. Functionality and low overhead are important, however. Can it run my apps? Does it have wide-spread support so that I do not need to search all over the planet for drivers/patches?


Heck, at my current level of computer usage with XP, I could get away with returning to Windows 2000 with very little loss in functionality.

Moral of the story, get what you need, not with that they tell you that you need.

I have had Vista on a couple of my computers for almost a year now and there are problems with it. First of all, it does not support all printers and scanners even when you install the drivers. The other thing is that when using certain ripping programs they do not work on Vista. I do like that it does not crash like XP does. It is fun to mess with no matter the price it has a lot of good features that work great. In my opinion none of the other operating systems are no different they all have there good points and bad it does matter if you change operating systems or not. I have computers running all systems Mac, Vista, XP, and Linux. I like all of them and they all work good. The only problem that I have with Mac and Linux is that they do not run the software that you really need. They are getting better with the MAC and both are able to use virtualization to run other systems but you can also do this in Vista. So I think that all these people complaining they are doing it for nothing because no matter what system you use they all have good and bad features in them.

As a student in the IT field, I have yet to make a complex conclusion about Vista. About 2 months ago, I had no clue what it was to experience Vista and the Aero affects. Since working with it consistently for a few months now, I have grown to like it and respect the advancements microsoft has made. We know that they are already working on something else and I would bet money that it will be even more advanced than Vista. I am content with Vista as I learn to use it and configure it properly. I do know one thing, if you're going to upgrade, you better upgrade all of your pc's because if you think you're going to get Vista and XP to communicate without pulling some hair out of your head, you're in for a suprise. In a small home environment like mine, it is ideal to upgrade, but for some it may be more efficient to keep on with XP. Luckily all I need to do to upgrade my home desktop is some memory. For others with older pc's, it may be a far more expensive process to acheive desired specifics. Nothing in life is easy though. Also, I have performed upgrades before, and this is by far the most complex of processes when determining what will be needed to acheive specific operations. My advice would be to take great time and care when deciding to upgrade. Money makes the world go 'round and if upgrading means stressing your business then this may not be the time. However, microsoft will continue to become more and more complex and eventually, even Vista will be considered "out of date".

This article points out many ups and downs about vista. I don?t remember direct x 10 being mentioned before just 9. I really don?t use the ready boost but I do like the aero interface. I feel better about the better security and bit locker. I had some difficult networking problems with my 3 computers but Michael helped me out and we found out the Norton 360 was causing the problems. I also have compatibility issues with programs as mentioned such as Nero And Sony Clie (like a palm pilot) and many games.
Gregory George

Indeed they are unique features of Vista, but hardly reasons to upgrade.

If you need a new PC you are best off buying something robust and it will come with Vista and will work just fine, without issues on a decent new box.

Upgrade? What for?

Aeroglass is a ridiculous interface, I threw it out after two weeks, I have a TV I can look at for entertainment, my computer is for computing (whether that's processing audio/video, graphic design, building websites, a=or gaming).

Rady Boost? Okay that's a feature I 'd thought I'd try, even MS comments that it really doesn't do much for you, its NOT like adding more ram at all and with RAm so cheap, why not just add RAM instead. Ready Boost is a cook concept, but still doesn't offer a sizeable enough performance increase beyond quicker reads that you will notice aids in SOME tasks when low on RAM. Most cheap thumb drives don't offer fast enough speeds for Reday Boost to work and those that do, market themselves as Fast - Readu Boost Ready and jack the price, honestly RAM is usually cheaper than RB compatible drives .

Poor aplpication compatibility, I run anything and everything i can get my hands on, I have never had a compatibility issue, with over 200Gigs or program files installed.
Game Performance, as has already been said, Vista disables Aeroglass to extend greater GPU support for games, agian though, best when installed on a new system or one with plenty of RAM anyway.

DRM- Well DRM content is irrelevant in Vista, as far as music is concerned or even HDMI outputs, which work without issue, however the S/PDIF interface is not deemed a secure interface and therefore Vista automatically disables S/PDIF output in such situations, this is no different that XP though.

I think that there are some good that can come out of upgrade to Vista and there are also bad reason also but i believe that the upgrade would not only better the personal use for the business user but also the personal users. I also think that every computer should run Areo because its so much easier for everyones use.

I personally Like Vista, Personalization is key with this O/S. features include improved search, advanced networking capabilities, and new audio, as well as the sidebar that displays everyday used Gadgets.

This article made a lot of great arguements on both sides but personally I would choose vista over xp. One of the main reasons for me would be the aeros feature. I know that the feature is just cosmetic but I think that its pretty cool.