Windows Vista is often referred to as longhorn because of the fact that the development has taken longer time than expected. The development has indeed taken 5 years and that is why many had hoped for the best.
It is quiet daunting to note that Windows Vista’s minimum hardware requirement is very high that older PC bought before 2005 needs to have an upgrade. According to Paul Thurrott, the minimum hardware requirements that can run on Vista OS are as follows”
“- A "modern" Intel, AMD, or VIA Technologies CPU
- 512MB of RAM or more
- A DirectX 9-class 3D graphics card
Such a system will provide what Microsoft calls a "good" experience with Vista, though it might not provide you with the high-end Aero Glass UI. For a better experience, the company recommends a graphics processor that supports the new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) technology. Such systems will enjoy "enhanced graphics stability, multi-application performance, and monitor hot-plugging" when compared to Windows XP, Microsoft says. For the best experience, Microsoft recommends DirectX 9-class graphics hardware that supports WDDM and Pixel Shader 2.0 technologies, and 64-256MB of dedicated video RAM, depending on screen resolution.”
Windows Vista is Expensive
For Windows XP user upgrade option, Microsoft offers a discount where you just need to pay $99 but for a stand-alone Vista version, user has to fully pay the selling price. The Home, Premium cost is $299 and Windows Vista Ultimate cost is $399 where the Aero UI and Media Center capabilities are included. These features allows user to experience a good multimedia computing but these feature is not available in Home Basic version. Additionally, if you have Xbox gadget, Home Basic can’t connect the peripheral.
Microsoft offers three versions of Vista to home users in the U.S. -- Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate. You can buy any of these in the upgrade version with a discount, or the stand-alone version without the discount.
The cheapest way for current Windows XP users to get a legal copy of Vista is to buy the upgrade version of Home Basic, which is $99. But you don't want the cheapest version.
First, the upgrade version will require you to keep your Windows XP CD for years. You do have a Windows XP CD handy, don't you? Second, Home Basic just won't cut it for most people. It lacks the Aero UI and Media Center capabilities. Plus, you can't connect Xbox peripherals to Home Basic. For many, including yours truly, those are the three best reasons to upgrade to Vista in the first place.
A big discount only can be gained if the buyer will get a new PC because the computer reseller’s acquired huge discounts and it will indeed cost too much to purchase new set of PC especially in business used.
Mike Elgan. 2007. [Online] Retrieved on 4 October. 2008. Available at: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9009124&pageNumber=3
Vista is time-consuming
“Installing any new operating system is time-consuming. You have to configure everything, load your data, install your applications and get your peripherals working. Then, in the case of Vista, you have to figure out where Microsoft buried all the options, menus and features and get used to the ubiquitous Search boxes. Anytime you want to do anything in Vista, it seems, the software asks, "Are you sure?" You'll want to figure out how to turn that off and customize Vista to get rid of all its annoying "user-friendly" hand-holding "features."
But buying Vista now, and installing it on old hardware, adds additional, time-consuming tasks -- possibly an additional day or two. Why? Chances are, you'll have to hunt down, install and troubleshoot new drivers for your old peripherals and system components.” (Mike Elgan. 2007)
Mike Elgan. 2007. [Online] Retrieved on 4 October. 2008. Available at: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9009124&pageNumber=3
Windows Easy Transfer where you can easily transfer all installed application from Windows XP to vista is one of the feature of Vista. However, it only works when the user has re-installed all applications because it does not really move the installed applications but merely setup data.
Thus, Windows XP to Vista upgrade is just a big hassle using your old PC and that is why it is not recommended to install Vista on an older PC.
XP SP 3 is proven to be faster than Windows Vista
“New tests have revealed that Windows XP with the beta Service Pack 3 has twice the performance of Vista, even with its long-awaited Service Pack 1.” (Suzanne Tindal. 2007)
Researchers from Florida based Software Company Devil Mountain Software proves than the Windows Vista performance was not overwhelming which proves that the Windows XP SP3 predecessor outshines Vista in terms of speed.
“Vista, both with and without SP1, performed notably slower than XP with SP3 in the test, taking over 80 seconds to complete the test, compared to the beta SP3-enhanced XP's 35 seconds.” (Suzanne Tindal. 2007)
The test was tested using a Dell XPS M1710 with a 2GHz Core 2 Dou CPU and 1GB RAM where Microsoft Office 2007 software was used using a simultaneous productivity task that include a compound document and supporting workbooks and presentation materials. The test has resulted with Vista performance increased less than 2% and the XP SP3 performance increased of 10%.
Suzanne Tindal. 2007. [Online]. Accessed on 5 October 2008. Available at: http://news.cnet.com/Windows-XP-outshines-Vista-in-benchmarking-test/2100-1016_3-6220201.html
User Account Control frustration
Reports shows that the UAC or User Account Control feature of Windows Vista gives so much frustration to its users as it always prompts user for every application or hardware driver to be installed if the user is not the administrator. This frustrates users because most of the PC users are the administrators itself yet it still prompts for some administrative permission.
IT *Virgin* Article in your blog? heh. anyway stay tune for Windows 7. the new OS from Microsoft.