26 January 2007
ComputerWorld Urges Users To Wait
ComputerWorld has released an article urging people to wait before switching to Vista.
The first issue listed is that Vista is not complete and isn't predicted to be until the release of the first service pack. There is a lot of hardware and software that is incompatible for the time being. Most of Creative's products have Vista drivers, while 2 are beta versions and three of their older products will not be supported. AMD is warning that drivers for ATI video cards should not be used yet for critical operations or for anything that requires productivity and is currently only a beta version. Security software makers Trend Micro, Panda, CA and Symantec will release updates to their software on Tuesday with the release of Vista. McAfee on the other had has made not indication as to when they will release updates to support Vista. Some of ZoneAlarm's product will have support for Vista within a week. The last issue of why Vista is not complete is that while DirectX 10 is great for games, there are some missing elements of its being able to be used. Video cards are only partially ready to support it and there are no games currently on the market to support it.
Another reason not to rush out and buy, is that it is rather expensive. While Vista Home Basic is cheaper with the upgrade at $99, it requires you to keep your Windows XP CD which may be a problem for people who bought computers with the XP recovery located on a hard drive partition. Also the Home version does not support Windows Media Center, the Aero UI nor does it provide Xbox connectivity.
Also included is the fact that Vista requires a newer computer to be able to fully use Vista. Vista need at a minimum 1 GB of RAM with the best performance coming from 4 GB of RAM.
Because of the structure of the UI in Vista it requires a longer learning time then switching from Windows 2000 to XP did. The options are in different places within Vista. Also the time required to find all the drivers for not so new computers will cut into the time before you can actually use the system.
Another important thing to remember is that XP is not yet obsolete. After updates, patches and years of being in use, XP has become stable and understood by the industry. Microsoft is also committed to supporting XP for another 7 years at least and has a third service pack planned for next year.
ComputerWorld also is encouraging people to switch to a Mac rather than Vista provided they are not interested in PC gaming and don't have applications that they don't want to run without emulating Windows.
The first issue listed is that Vista is not complete and isn't predicted to be until the release of the first service pack. There is a lot of hardware and software that is incompatible for the time being. Most of Creative's products have Vista drivers, while 2 are beta versions and three of their older products will not be supported. AMD is warning that drivers for ATI video cards should not be used yet for critical operations or for anything that requires productivity and is currently only a beta version. Security software makers Trend Micro, Panda, CA and Symantec will release updates to their software on Tuesday with the release of Vista. McAfee on the other had has made not indication as to when they will release updates to support Vista. Some of ZoneAlarm's product will have support for Vista within a week. The last issue of why Vista is not complete is that while DirectX 10 is great for games, there are some missing elements of its being able to be used. Video cards are only partially ready to support it and there are no games currently on the market to support it.
Another reason not to rush out and buy, is that it is rather expensive. While Vista Home Basic is cheaper with the upgrade at $99, it requires you to keep your Windows XP CD which may be a problem for people who bought computers with the XP recovery located on a hard drive partition. Also the Home version does not support Windows Media Center, the Aero UI nor does it provide Xbox connectivity.
Also included is the fact that Vista requires a newer computer to be able to fully use Vista. Vista need at a minimum 1 GB of RAM with the best performance coming from 4 GB of RAM.
Because of the structure of the UI in Vista it requires a longer learning time then switching from Windows 2000 to XP did. The options are in different places within Vista. Also the time required to find all the drivers for not so new computers will cut into the time before you can actually use the system.
Another important thing to remember is that XP is not yet obsolete. After updates, patches and years of being in use, XP has become stable and understood by the industry. Microsoft is also committed to supporting XP for another 7 years at least and has a third service pack planned for next year.
ComputerWorld also is encouraging people to switch to a Mac rather than Vista provided they are not interested in PC gaming and don't have applications that they don't want to run without emulating Windows.
Labels: Mac, microsoft, vista, windows
