Windows Vista Problems

I currently use the Microsoft XP Professional Operating System. It works perfectly fine for me, no problem. But now that Vista with its glorious interface has risen over the horizon, there is a little voice in my head saying, "Upgrade, Upgrade. Bill wants you to upgrade. Upgrade or you will be left high and dry at the Gates."

Of course, being a somewhat cautious sort, I've decided not to upgrade at once. I thought I'd look around and see what the folks who have already used the new OS have to say about it. Here's what I learned from around the net:

Very expensive
Upgrading to Vista is a rather expensive business, Apparently you don't shell out money for just the Vista Operating System, but you will also have to buy an entirely new, upgraded RAM and Video Cards. It's fine if you are buying a new PC altogether, otherwise it's hard on your pockets.

Lot of technical incompatibilities
The rest of the technical world hasn't caught up with Vista yet - what were they doing, snoozing for the past 6 years? - which means that there is a great deal of stuff that is going to be incompatible with your new OS. So if, like me, you have a printer and scanner that you've had for a year or so, then their drivers won't be compatible and, ergo, they won't work. Some board chipsets are not fully supported. Java doesn't work on Vista. Neither do some Adobe products and anti-virus programs like Norton. Vista 32 bit is only for 32 bit PCs. It won't work with 64 bit or 128 bit PCs. Only Windows Vista Ultimate and Business Editions support faxing. For the rest you will have to buy third-party faxing software, provided they are Vista-compatible.

Requires a lot of space
Vista really, really hogs Memory and CPU. It takes about 600 MB space even without any programs running. And, since it is very graphic intensive, it takes a lot of time loading. Vista was supposed to be faster than XP; it's apparently not.

Trouble installing
A lot of people seemed to have really struggled to get the OS installed in the first place. If they're not complaining that installation is 'slow' and 'takes forever', 'BIOS is not ACPI compliant' is everyone's favorite installing error to grouse about.

License misunderstanding
Before buying, you should carefully read the fine print and understand what you are buying and what that license entails. If you buy a OEM license for Vista, you can upgrade a multiple times only on one computer, provided you upgrade components just about twice, preferably never. If you upgrade more than twice, the license becomes void and you will need to buy a new one. Retail license copies, on the other hand, can be transferred at any time.

Security features overdone
The user account control is a major pain in the hind quarters. It's very annoying and distracting. And if you switch it off, the whole purpose is defeated. So what's the point? The unified audio driver means Bill's company has more control over your music and its fair use than you do. It looks like Microsoft is trying to protect and save users from their own dark sides. Something like you're all potential pirates and need watching. Excessive and offensive, really, even if understandable from their point of view.

Some Other Glitches

• Lack of button bars in Internet Explorer.
• Start menu does not fold like in XP.
• Search feature is not particularly efficient.
• System defragmenting takes ages and ages.

According to some users, the interface is a pure rip-off of Mac OS X. Microsoft support ranges from slow to non-existent. They ought to provide a Vista service pack to all incoming customers. I think I'm going to sit on this a while. I will probably have to upgrade anyway one of these days as Microsoft will be putting XP into the retired pasture by next year or the one after, but by then all the world will have become Vista compatible - if we have not all migrated to Linux and other open source software, that is - and hopefully all the bugs and glitches will have been caught out and fixed. Or maybe I'll just hang around and wait for the next planned OS Venice.