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(More customer reviews)Let's get one thing straight right off the bat- I'm not a Microsoft hater. In fact, I've been very satisfied with XP from the start, and still am despite having had experience with other operating systems which are probably more advanced and streamlined. However, with the release of Vista I can't help but feel that this product is another 'interim OS' - a la Windows 98/98 Second Edition or Windows ME - that Microsoft put out for several reasons: 1) the fact that they haven't introduced a new OS in a long time, thus tempting users to look to other alternatives in search of new features. 2) as support for the fact that Windows is still their major cash cow 3) that Apple and Linux are finally starting to seriously threaten the OS stranglehold that Microsoft has held for so many years.
On point one, the last and- most would say- best OS Microsoft has released is Windows XP. Despite the fact that it's starting to show its age, I believe XP is a superior operating system to Vista for several reasons to be discussed later in detail. Nevertheless, it's been a good 7 years since XP was released, which is an a very long time in the software industry.
Point two is reinforced by the acknowledged fact that another Windows OS is already in development and is due out relatively soon (within the next 2-3 years) and the fact that most Vista sales are made from OEM distributors with the price included in the sticker cost. In many cases, end users have no choice at all for their operating system- you either get it with Vista, or you don't at all. Additionally, the retail package cost of the OS is unusually high- especially for the 'Ultimate' version which adds a few extra security and media features.
Point three is somewhat speculative, but there is some evidence pointing to its truth. The recent change of Mac hardware from the unique Motorola architecture to Intel-based might have riled some hardcore Apple fans, but it was a master-stroke from the business perspective. Now Mac users can run Windows in native mode while also benefiting from the superior Mac OS (still unavailable on non-Apple machines) and thus be able to break the 'gaming block' that Macs have been hobbled with previously. As to the Mac OS's general superiority, there really has never been any doubt- one merely has to see how much Vista attempts to mimic it to find proof of that. On the Linux front, it's really difficult to argue with free- and Linux is steadily improving both in terms of user-friendliness and capability. It has advanced to the point now that one no longer needs any understanding of the command line to use it, and most software- including many games- can be run on Linux.
Let's get down to examining the improvements from XP home to Vista home edition, which is what most people that would pay for upgrades are looking for. Bear in mind I haven't examined an enterprise edition and don't particularly care about business applications of Vista, since I still use XP Pro at work and have no intention of changing that.
Vista's user interface offers a new look and feel, which in anything but the lowest cost version is much more attractive than XP. It has translucent windows, animation effects, and new UI features including the 'Flip' in Premium edition which is a more visual approach to the old alt-tab interface used to switch between active applications and windows. There are also Windows Gadgets, which are small desktop apps, and a Sidebar that can contain Gadgets for quick use. Additionally, dialogs and windows- especially wizards- are standardized and more consistent in look and feel than in previous Windows versions. For pure Windows users, these will all be excitingly new features. However, they aren't actually new- Mac OS X has had all of these features in place for three or more years. This isn't in itself a bad thing, as these are generally good features. The only problem is they aren't implemented very well. Take the example of the translucent windows: put two windows side by side and they look very similar- at a glance it's very hard to tell which one is the active (or 'topmost') window- the only difference is a white line going around the border of the active one. In XP, the windows didn't look nearly as pretty but at least you never had any doubt which one was active. Additionally, the new look and feel comes at a rather punishing cost- the system requirements for Vista increase dramatically if these features are all enabled, and it's highly questionable whether a machine meeting the minimum requirements will be able to run Vista at anything approaching acceptable speed- let alone applications running ON Vista. This means that machines that are 3 or more years old should definitely not be upgraded to Vista, as they will be reduced to snail's pace. If you prefer, you can run Vista with the classic XP layout and look and feel, which makes it look very much like XP and has much better performance on slower machines. However, if you do this it begs the question- what's the point, then? You're essentially back to XP with some marginally useful new functionality, and a few hundred dollars out.
Security features are one of the main selling points of Vista. When you install any software that alters the system- including any and all software drivers and almost any serious applications- you will encounter at least one security popup. You have to explicitly click the Allow/Continue button to get it to proceed. There is no 'Always allow' option, so if you see the dialog once, you will see it again if you do the same thing. Theoretically, this is a great idea- it means a user can't do anything dangerous without seeing a warning. The problem is the warnings are often unclear, and a user won't know whether it's a real threat or not, and whenever one shows up they have to stop whatever they're doing and consider it (or not). Additionally these don't just show up during installations- this security also fires popup warnings whenever applications- including web apps- do anything that Windows construes as 'suspicious,' which is nigh on everything. Example: you plug in an external hard drive. Security warning; click continue. You browse to it and launch an installation batch file. Warning; click continue. The program asks you to register, and sends you to a site that has cookies. Warning; click continue. Within about 10 minutes of using Vista, I had seen more of these than I have on my Mac in 2 months, and that with relatively frequent OS updates too. And no, being an administrator doesn't do a thing in this regard, since Vista's security treats administrators as regular users (huh? exactly...) This is bad for two major reasons that are related: it's so annoying it'll make you spit and holler at the screen, and as a result it (ironically) doesn't do what it was meant to do- which is to stop bad stuff like viruses from taking the whole PC down. Users will get so used to just dismissing the popups that when a REAL threat appears, they will likely just dismiss it out of hand. You can save yourself the trouble and disable User Account Control, but then you're essentially back to XP. Once again, this leads us to that question- what's the point in upgrading then?
Vista includes new versions of Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, as well as some additional apps for recording movies and (in Ultimate) backing up data. In my opinion these bundled Windows programs have never been better than third party apps- and since I don't have a great deal of experience using them I'll leave others to review them. Perhaps the most important new package Vista introduces is DirectX 10. In my admittedly biased gamer's mind, this is the only Vista feature even worth examining if you're considering upgrading. Windows has always been the OS of choice for gamers, and the fact that XP doesn't support (and never will according to Microsoft, though technically there isn't any reason it can't) the new version of DirectX means that gamers will probably be forced to upgrade eventually. For now, a handful of titles support DirectX 10 in addition to 9, though these are very few at this moment and there are still none that support only version 10. Some of these include Crysis, Company of Heroes, and World in Conflict- to name a few. As is to be expected, version 10 adds a lot of improvements to graphical detail and image quality, and games that take advantage of these features look noticeably better. However, due to the fact that there simply aren't many available yet, it's debatable whether it's worth upgrading to Vista just to do this. It will likely be some years yet before the first DirectX 10-only games appear, so there is certainly no compelling need to upgrade immediately if you just want to play. In fact, upgrading for the sake of gaming is not without risk- and on that note...
Let's talk about software compatibility. Presumably, Vista is backwards compatible with anything that could run on XP. Realistically, it's anyone's guess what will work. Straight up, you can expect none of the drivers you use under XP to work with Vista. In fact, many drivers written FOR Vista don't work, or have very serious technical issues that include such nastiness as random blue screens of death and other unsavory results. I don't know whether this is a result of poor third party support or just the fact that Vista is so new, but no working drivers = no working hardware, which is bad news. In general, newer software and hardware tends to work decently, but if you're using older hardware and peripherals, you might be forced to upgrade those along with the OS. For gamers in particular, it's advisable you keep XP on a separate partition at the very least, since there are many known issues with Vista and older games- usually due to driver issues. These range from relatively minor things like graphical...Read more›
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