First of all, let me come clean (full disclosure and all). I was a beta-tester for Vista, and so I suppose I don't really come at this from a totally unbiased point of view. That said, since many of Vista's most vocal detractors have either not used the new operating system at all, or uninstalled the OS without really giving it a shot, I don't feel too bad in voicing my opinion.
The first thing I wonder about is why some people seem so adamently opposed to the new operating system. I think I've identified the 7 things that seem to get mentioned frequently by "Vista bashers" and those who are simply uncertain about whether or not to upgrade:
1. "XP is good enough."
2. "I always wait until SP1 to install a new OS"
3. "Vista doesn't have any new features I need" / "The price is too high"
4. "Vista is a RAM hog" or "The system requirements are too high"
5. "Vista isn't any more secure than XP" / "Vista is loaded with DRM"
6. "UAC is annoying"
7. "My hardware or software isn't compatible with Vista" or "Vista isn't stable"
Now let me try to address these one at a time, and perhaps show you why you may want to upgrade in the process.
Anti-Vista criticism 1. "XP is good enough."
Don't get me wrong. XP was/is a great opperating system. But let's face it. It was first released in October, 2001, and it's starting to show it's age. Although Microsoft has done an excellent job releasing periodic updates (service pack 2 especially) and releasing new variations (XP x64 edition), the OS is still aging, and remains an OS that was constructed in a time when single-core less than 1 Ghz processors and 256 MB RAM were considered good hardware. In the last 5 years, PC technology has come A LONG way, and it's time for an OS better tuned to take advantage of the latest hardware.
What makes this criticism especially odd is that it frequently comes from people who demand to have the latest and greatest hardware for their systems, and who wouldn't dream of using any other 5 year old piece of software. But, for whatever reason, when it comes to new operating systems, this has been the cry of power-users with every release. When XP was released, Windows 2000 or even Windows 98 were good enough. When Windows 98 came out, Windows 95 was good enough. There seems to be some kind of "fear of the new" when it comes to operating systems, that doesn't apply to other software products. Within time, people will get used to the new OS, and when the next OS comes out, then it will be Vista that is good enough.
Anti-Vista criticism 2. "I always wait until SP1 to install a new OS"
Now there's nothing wrong with wanting an incredibly stable and well-tested operating system. But unless you're in a business environment where upgrading an OS and providing minimal tech support is an incredibly time-and-money consuming process, there's little reason to wait in this case. Vista is the most fully tested, and closest to bug-free version of Windows released to date. Microsoft, and those of us who tested the product, take great pride in this.
But if you are a business or just refuse to budge on this point, it's worth mentioning that work on Vista didn't stop with the release of Vista. Once Vista reached the Release Candidate stage, the Windows Server 2007 release was put on a slightly different path, keeping the same release builds as Vista, but going into an extended "Beta 3" cycle, for continued development and improvement after the release of Vista. When the Windows Server 2007 product is released late this year, Micorosft will also release Vista SP1 that reunites the diverged versions, and brings Vista "up to date" with the codebase of the Server release.
This has a couple of benefits. It means that any issues found after the release of Vista can be incorporated into the Server development, making the server incredibly well tested at release. It also is allowing Microsoft to get the release of Vista SP1 out much faster than they usually do for a first service pack. Also, unlike XP/Server 2003, Vista/Server 2007 will be based on the same codebase making future updates easier to manage.
Anti-Vista criticism 3. "Vista doesn't have any new features I need" / "The Price is too High"
Well, everyone's definition of need is different. From one standpoint, no one really needs an OS beyond DOS. Of course, for most of us, going back to the DOS days is unthinkable. Just like when XP was released, though, many people can't imagine doing more with their PC than they currently do. Vista brings many future-ready features to the table. DirectX 10 for games, IPv6 for networking, digital high-definition CableCard support for Media Center, and other new features provide the basic support for future software and hardware capabilities.
Add to that the much improved Media Center application included with the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Vista, the excellent new Windows Mail application that replaces Outlook Express, and other improvements to the existing Windows software package, and you have a product that just feels "newer" and, in most cases, "better". The biggest improvement, however, is likely in the user interface. Going from XP's "luna" interface to Vista's "aero" interface, with it's translucent, pixel-shaded, and shadowed windows, is like going from regular TV to HDTV. It's just impressive. And, like HDTV, once you get used to it, regular TV (XP's interface) just looks "bland" and "dated," in a way it never did before you switched. Other, under the hood, improvements to performance of today's mid-to-high end systems (better RAM management with large amounts of RAM, an improved scheduler for multi-core processors, a fully-featured 64-bit variant) help to bring the OS up to the level expected for a 2007 operating system.
Which brings us to price. There's a lot of new or improved goodies in Vista, and some huge improvements "under the hood," but does that make it worth your money? Critics often cite the retail cost of a full version of Windows Vista Ultimate ($399) when proclaiming Vista overpriced. Now, on that I agree, but there's really no reason to spend that much. If you REALLY want the Ultimate Edition, you can get an upgrade or OEM version for $199 (OEM) to $259 (Retail Upgrade). Both provide you with the exact same OS at a much reduced price. And, almost no one needs to spend that. For almost all home users, Vista Home Premium is the version to get: and it can be had for $109-119 (OEM) or $159 (Retail Upgrade). University students can get the software for even less than that. In my opinion Vista is worth every bit of the $159 Home Premium Upgrade price, especially since we've been using XP for over 5 full years now, getting updates for free throughout that time.
Now the situation is different if you've got an older system -- one that likely won't benefit from any performance improvement in upgrading to Vista (and may, in fact, suffer in performance, depending on the configuration). In that case, save your money. You'll likely be in the market for a new PC anyway, before too long. And that system will come with Vista anyway, so why pay for it twice?
Anti-Vista criticism 4. "Vista is a RAM hog" or "The system requirements are too high"
These two comments aren't really "wrong" in the classic sense. Compared to XP, the system requirements are much higher for Vista, especially if you want the full experience. And Vista does use more RAM than XP, but if you have the RAM, it handles it better. Really this is only an issue for older, less powerful systems. Today's newest systems, and more advanced systems in the future, will excel with a Vista OS that can make better use of their additional resources.
The way Vista handles RAM is a huge improvement over the way XP managed it. One side effect is that more RAM will ALWAYS be in use, though when launching new applications when approaching your RAM limit, you will notice the operating system give up some of the RAM to the new application. The way it allocates RAM is quite intelligent, but it may seem offputting at first if you carefully scrutinize how much RAM is in use on your system at any given time. Even cooler is the new SuperFetch feature, which uses just about ALL your free RAM at any given time to cache information from the hard disk that Vista thinks you may want to access soon. A related feature, ReadyBoost, lets you use a USB key or memory card for a similar purpose, and accessing data from a flash memory device is usually faster than the hard disk.
One thing Microsoft doesn't seem to have made very clear is what exactly the ideal system requirements are for a Vista system. So, I am going to go ahead and list what I consider to be the system requirements for a great Vista experience. The first is an "ideal" system... which is what you should look for if you're buying new hardware today to get the absolute most out of the new OS. The second is a "good" system, which is what you should look at to determine if a Vista upgrade is worth it on your current system. My "good" system requirements are much higher than Microsoft's listed requirements, but mine are designed to make sure you can use all the important Vista features and run applications as fast as XP.
An "ideal" Vista system:
Reasonably fast dual core processor (Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core Duo, AMD Athalon X2, or AMD Turion X2)
2 GB RAM (even more if you run RAM-heavy apps like Photoshop, Premiere, 3DSMax, etc.)
A modern "Aero" capable video card (ATI Radeon x1x00 series, Nvidia GeForce 7x00 or 8x00 series)
DVD optical drive and hard drives to meet your needs
A "good" Vista system:
Reasonably fast single core processor or dual-core processor (Pentium 4 3 Ghz+, AMD Athalon 64 3000+, or better)
1 GB RAM
An "aero" capable video card (ATI Radeon 9500 or above, Nvidia GeForce 5100 or above, ATI or Nvidia integrated versions of the same, Intel GMA 950 or newer)
DVD optical drive and hard drives to meet your needs
Many desktops released over the last few years meet the requirements for a "good" system, but if they use Intel integrated graphics (prior to the GMA 950), a new graphics card will be needed to experience aero. If you aren't a gamer, a basic $30 or so graphics card will easily suffice. Notebooks pose a bigger problem, as the graphics cards aren't upgradeable. Personally, if you can't run "aero" then I'm not sure it's worth upgrading to Vista -- unless you really need one of the other new features.
Anti-Vista criticism 5. "Vista isn't any more secure than XP" / "Vista is loaded with DRM"
While some users have taken great care to use advanced third-party utilities to increase the security of their XP systems, most users' systems are open to attacks in a number of ways. Although a proper anti-virus solution is still necessary on Vista (EU regulations and potential U.S. lawsuits prevented Microsoft from including an antivirus solution in the package), overall system security is improved in a number of ways.
The most visible new "security" feature is User Account Control, a feature that annoys some (okay, most) users, does it's job well enough as a way of making end users think twice about launching an unknown application or doing something else that could potentially harm their system. While power users will likely turn off this feature, it is a good idea for many users.
Vista also includes many other security features that aren't as obvious to the end user. Restricting access to "Ring 0" of the OS, and preventing applications from being run by "an administrator" in many cases effectively kills off rootkits and other kinds of malware without the user even knowing. Internet Explorer runs in a new "protected mode" by default, using an array of new isolation features and "integrity controls" to limit the impact of downloading undesireable contact, and effectively taking Internet Explorer from the worst of the web browsers to one of the best, in terms of security.
A lot of the security advancements are quite complicated in how they work, but largely transparent to the end user, but the important thing is that even if a user "installs" some malware by accident, that software is usually quite restricted in it's interaction with other processes, and, in turn, it's ability to harm your machine.
While security is increased through isolation, many complain about the "DRM" which they claim has infected every aspect of Vista. "DRM," for those who don't know, stands for Digital Rights Management, and has become quite pervasive in the PC and consumer electronics world over the past few years. Every since students started getting their music from Napster instead of record stores, and people started downloading software from newsgroups instead of purchasing it, content owners have scrambled for ways to prevent their intellectual property from being copied and redistributed to those who don't pay for it.
That sounds good and well to most people who pay for their software, music, and movies, but in attempting to protect their property, some forms of DRM effectively prevent the legal use of product by its purchaser. This is why many, myself included, cringe at the thought of increasing DRM even further. Unfortunately, that's really the way of the world -- and the DRM in Vista isn't as overbearing as people think it is.
There are essentially two kinds of DRM in Vista: the DRM that protects the operating system, and DRM that protects any other piece of software or media that you acquire (iTunes Store downloads, DVDs, Blu-ray and HD DVD discs, etc.). The DRM that protects Vista is commonly called WGA, or Windows Genuine Advantage, and is also present in XP, though Microsoft has been critisized for expanding its use and reach in Vista. This is true, though for most legal purchasers, WGA will never be an issue. There are some circumstances under which Vista will think you've installed it to another machine and ask you to reactivate. Fortunately, this isn't at all common, and if you perform an upgrade that prompts this, a quick call to a Microsoft 800 number, quickly gets you reactivated.
It's the other kind of DRM that angers most people. Unfortunately, the truly restrictive forms of DRM that are the worst for the consumer are definitely NOT unique to Vista. AACS, HDCP, CableCard encruption, etc. all exist in consumer electronics equipment and must be present for various types of media to play. Vista supports these, and while it would be nice to think that Microsoft pulls so much weight that they could have demanded that Vista not support these protocols and still be able to play all the forms of media that it does, the truth is content owners are scared to death, and are more concerned with protecting their property than with you being able to use their product.
It's important to understand this point: Vista "supports" or "enforces" various DRM mechanisms placed on media, as does XP (or any otehr device) that can play the same media. It does NOT add DRM to any file, ever. Your .mp3 files will not suddenly become "protected" becuase you install Vista. It also does not prevent any of the "DRM-removing" tools that have become so popular from working jsut as well as they did on XP.
Anti-Vista criticism 6. "UAC is annoying"
Yes. Yes, it is. It (User Account Control) is not nearly as annoying as it was in earlier beta builds of Vista, but it's still bad enough that many people (especially "Power-users") turn it off. I know. I am one of them. This is, in my opinion the one MAJOR flaw of Vista, that still needs to be fixed in SP1. All the complaining of us beta-testers did finally get some things fixed, but it was too late in the testing cycle to accomplish the fairly large overhaul that was needed to make UAC acceptable.
For those who haven't used Vista, UAC is a system that seeks to prevent users from doing "dumb" things on their computers, and to keep rogue applications from doing things you don't want them to do. It does this by asking you for "permission" to do any number of tasks. Unfortunately, the system asks you way too often for permission to do things you already told it to do, or to allow an application that you use frequently to perform seemingly mundane tasks. What this leads to is either users just getting into the practice of clicking "Allow" without even reading the warning, or turning off UAC completely.
But, since UAC is such a fundamental part of Vista's security subsystem, that turning it off opens you up to many of the risks that Vista's security measures sought to protect you from. Most importantly, with UAC off, Internet Explorer will no longer run in Protected Mode. Also, attempting to perform a few actions (such as installing a network printer) that rely on UAC, will fail to function correctly.
Microsoft knows this is a problem, and I expect that with SP1, UAC will fuction as it always should, protecting you from yourself in as unabtrusive a way as possible, and better understanding what applications want to do. Even before SP1, though, most applications are being updated to not perform actions that UAC deems "suspect," and thus triggering the permission prompt. In any case, this issue will improve over time, and you can still run Vista with UAC off in the meantime.
Anti-Vista criticism 7. "My hardware or software isn't compatible with Vista" or "Vista isn't stable"
While these two problems may not seem interrelated they actual are. Vista itself is incredibly stable, moreso than any other Microsoft OS at the time of their release, and not too far off the stability of XP or Windows Server 2003, which have had multiple service packs.
Some users, however, do have stability issues with Vista. The reason for that is that hardware companies, by and large, acted surprised last November, and again this January, when Microsoft released Vista to businesses and consumers, respectively. Hardware manufacturers, it seems, were the only ones in the world who had no idea that Vista was going to be released, and in many cases, they simply don't have drivers ready. The use of the poor quality Vista drivers, or pseudo-compatible XP drivers for hardware under Vista has led to many problems for some people.
Quite simply, that is not the fault of Vista. Hardware makers have the responsibility of making the drivers for the devices they create. The situation at the release of Vista was the same as the release of XP: many manufacturers tried to put off working on new drivers for as long as possible, and it led to problems early in the life of the operating system.
Fortunately, the situation is improving. If you buy a new large-vendor system with Vista preinstalled, you can be pretty much assured that the PC manufacture has tested and qualified the hardware and drivers for use on their systems... and those systems have few problems because of that. If you are considering upgrading the operating system on your existing PC, it's a good idea to look for Vista drivers for your hardware ahead of time, and, if at all possible, get an idea from others online if their are any major problems with your hardware.
Software companies are in a similar position, but have been responding quickly for the most part. Most major software packages have updates available to function better on Vista, so if you're using a recent version of most of your software, you're unlikely to have a problem after a simple update. If you use older software, or a smaller or company-specific software package, you may be in a position where that software doesn't run well on Vista, and likely won't for some time, or without a major (costly) revision.
It's a good idea to check with The Vista Software Compatibility List to see if the software you use has any issues with Vista when deciding whether or not to upgrade.
The Real Question: "To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade?"
Hopefully, this article alleviated some of your concerns regarding things you may have heard about Vista, and has given you a better idea if your hardware is really capable of running Vista well. But it still remains to be answered whether or not you should really upgrade now, or later, or just stick with XP for the rest of all time.
The answer really depends on you. The people who I think should upgrade now (or soon) are those currently in the market for new PCs (who will get Vista included with that new machine), home users and power users looking for a great media upgrade and an overall better experience on a newer PC. Of course, it is critical that those taking the upgrade route know that their hardware and software are supported as well. Businesses, of course, still want to wait until they've had time to qualify and update their internal software, etc, to be compatible with the new operating system.
Gamers present a special case: it's really hard to recommend what to do. New graphics cards that fully support the new DirectX 10 features are already out, and several games are coming fairly soon that can make use of the new features. Some current games, however, have issues with Vista, and in some cases, don't run as quickly, especially on middle-of-the-road hardware. I have migrated to using Vista pretty much exclusively for my games, but if you play incompatible games, then you'll certainly want XP as well. If you have the hard disk space, then I recommend dual-booting in this case, or having both XP and Vista installed on the same system. This will allow you to play your existing games from XP if necessary, but gets you ready for the upcoming games that will run better, or even exclusively, in Vista.
Really, I don't think anyone should stick with XP forever, but if your current system just isn't specced high enough to run Vista well, and you don't feel compelled to buy a new system in the near future, there's nothing wrong with keeping the XP system until you're ready to move up. Microsoft isn't killing XP just yet, and you shouldn't feel pressured into a new system before you need one. Just know that Vista, and it's new fetures, will be there when you are ready to take the plunge.
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