Hi Ed,
For the record, I have been a computer professional for over thirty years and I've been using personal computers since the late 70's. I've used every personal computer operating system since CP/M and MS-DOS 1.1, and including Macs and Unix/Linux.
I am a hard-core XP user. My desktops will stay on XP until they pull them from my stone-cold hands. Just want to set the record straight on my biases.
I bought a new laptop this fall. It came with Vista Home Premium. I find nothing compelling about it. It does nothing better than XP. It does a few things not as well as XP. And it is much
much MUCH more annoying than XP.
The key statement there is that
it does nothing better than XP.
Given that it does nothing better than XP I have to wonder why anyone would voluntarily put themselves through the hassles of installing a new operating system. Having gone through those hassles you have no improvements in any way. And now you have to live with those things you may like less than XP and those things that will surely annoy you much more than XP.
One of those things I like less ... far less ... is the new Mail and Contacts application. Actually these represent something larger that I mostly find annoying rather than an improvement.
For background, I have been using Outlook Express for my email and its built-in Address Book for all my contacts for many years. I continue to use them because I like them. If you use them and you use them because you like them, you will hate the new Vista Mail and Contacts. Here's why.
In Vista, Microsoft has tried to make all of the utilities and other built-in stuff look exactly like the Windows Explorer (the file manager). For a few applications, like the file manager, it works okay. For some it just doesn't work. I just can't wrap my head around using a file manager interface for doing email and contacts. Nor for some of the other built-in stuff, like network setup and management and a variety of other things.
The thing that will absolutely annoy you ... and I've yet to meet or hear from anyone who is not annoyed by it ... is the user account control (UAC). It constantly stops you and asks you if you really want to do what you have asked Vista to do. Then, having asked you if you really want to do it it pops yet another dialogue and asks if you're really really sure. It does this at the drop of a hat.
There's more. Some of what annoys me might not bother you, either because you don't do it or because it simply fits you better. And some of the stuff I haven't noticed may bug you a lot.
There were a number of my prefered applications that don't have Vista-specific versions, and won't ever, so I had some problems getting them installed. Some were relatively easy to get working and a couple I just had to decide to live without.
On the positive side, I haven't noticed any big performance issues. Everything I've run so far seems to run about the same under Vista as it does under XP. Most of the whining about the horsepower required to use Vista is blown way out of proportion. I ran a beta version on one of my desktop systems and it ran just fine, even though that system was way underpowered by the comments of many of the pundits.
I don't do anything that is seriously compute-intensive so I am not taxing Vista at all. Anyone into serious gaming is having real performance problems. There is supposed to be a bit of a performance increase with the Vista service pack (SP1) but most testers are saying that it's very minor.
Unless there is something you very specifically know that you want or need with Vista, I would simply wait until you either (a) have to buy a new system, which will likely come with Vista anyway, or (b) have a compelling need for something about Vista that will cause you to want or need it badly enough that you know it's worth putting up with anything you don't like about it.
Do NOT upgrade to Vista if you don't have a really compelling reason to do it.
In my opinion, of course.
I will be quite interested in reading Marvin's reaction to it.
...ken...
