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- Reviewed on: Windows Vista PC; Intel Pentium D dual-core 3.46 GHz with 4GB Corsair's DDR2 SDRAM, ATI Radeon x1300 All-In-Wonder
- The Good: Easier and faster to install, with greater flexibility; a vastly improved user interface; a built-in desktop search, calendar and sidebar; greatly improved security
- The Bad: The price — hey, it's supposed to be just an operating system after all; it's a memory hog; Vista Home basic will disappoint anyone looking for an improvement over XP; it could require hardware upgrades
- The Verdict: a handsome, stable operating system that makes you realize XP's interface was getting sadly tired
Operating systems should be boring software, but historically they have started passionate arguments that degenerated into grunts and fisticuffs, usually between Mac and Microsoft devotees. Now we have Windows Vista, five years in the making and touted by Microsoft as its most ambitious operating system since Windows 95. It remains to be seen whether its release will start brawls in artisanal brew pubs despite the rise of another rival, Linux.
That could be because Vista is like a new, more expensive car: It looks fabulous and costs a lot more, but there's always the nagging feeling that it's not going to be much different from its predecessor Windows XP.
Vista certainly runs like an entirely different operating system, and you need to test-drive it to see how different it is. And those accustomed to Windows XP would be forgiven if they don't notice right away. The two main changes everyone will see while kicking Vista's tires are eye candy and security. The rest of the changes, to continue the simile, are under the hood, and invisible.
Photogallery
Internet Links
- Flash introduction to Vista
- Paul Thurott's Vista Supersite
- Vista Developers' blog
- Which version is best for your system? Download the Upgrade Advisor
Full and upgrade prices:
Vista Ultimate: $499, $299
Vista Home Premium: $299, $179
Vista Home Basic: $259, $129
Vista Business: $379, $249
That's because Microsoft has thrown every programmer it could find at this project and given them a mandate to re-engineer Windows one end to the other.
The new Windows is more than just putting new tires on an old wreck. I hadn't realized how bored I had become with the XP interface until I started revving Vista's engines a couple of months ago; there are a lot of new ways of doing things in Vista, and the interface makes it a lot easier to guess what they are. And I'm impressed (if a little annoyed) with its revamped and in-your-face security systems; but then I'm no hacker and will not even try to guess what digital thugs will throw at Vista trying to make it crash.
As enthusiastic as I am, I'm also ambivalent about recommending Vista. For all of its tarnished reputation, Windows XP still a good, stable operating system as long as it's properly updated, patched and firewalled. Besides, chances are most users still haven't plumbed all its depths. And if money's tight, that's a good enough reason not to shell out for an upgrade — at least for now; eventually, as with all computers, you'll have little choice.
Vista comes in several flavours, but only two are worth considering for home users and another two for business users. Residential users will want to skip the featureless Home Basic edition, whose limitations should frustrate buyers too soon, and move directly to Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate. Business users can move toward Vista Business or, if they are Microsoft Software Assurance customers, can get it via volume licensing.
In all cases, the price can be daunting, especially since it's likely to involve new hardware. Home users are particularly vulnerable to that: Computers bought more than two years ago will probably have to be seriously upgraded, given to the kids, repurposed as file servers or simply tossed.
As one of its greatest assets, Vista's new user interface, which Microsoft calls Aero or Glass (an answer to Apple's Aqua), is driven by hardware, unlike previous versions of Windows, which ran their graphic interfaces exclusively by software. Few on-board video controllers have the memory required to give you that clean, crisp appearance that makes Vista so attractive, so you'll likely have to buy a video card to provide Aero with the processing power to drive a stable interface. It's not a very small expense, and a reason to hold off.
But Aero is gorgeous, at least to veteran Windows users. Mac users will be annoyed, and rightly so, because many of Aero's features have long been a part of Mac OS X, and they will once again say that Microsoft is simply copying Apple. And Linux fans will scoff too, mainly because it's part of the Linux culture to disdain any form of eye candy; a lot of Penguinistas still haven't forgiven Novell for incorporating sexy features into its latest version of SUSE.
As an operating system, Vista will operate but get cranky with machines offering 1 gigabyte of RAM; it requires at least 2 GB to give you that new-product feeling. Oddly, however, Vista carries over an annoying limitation from XP — it recognizes only 3.325 GB of RAM; since memory is installed two identical sticks at a time, it's impossible to buy 3.325 GB of RAM without overshooting and buying 4GB.
As for processors, you should have an Intel Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, or Athlon 64 X2 at the heart of your system. You'll also want a good video card, compatible with DirectX 9, perhaps with an on-board TV tuner, and about 60 or 80 GB of disk space.
Is cost no object? Then go for it. The Vista ride is like buying a really good car: It looks fabulous, offers a smooth and stable ride and you know it's safe on the information highway.
Microsoft originally based Vista on XP and added a laundry list of so many features that it eventually achieved sufficient mass to collapse into a black hole. The company then scrapped it and reworked it completely, motivated also by the need to improve security or lose all credibility. As part of the philosophy behind the re-engineering, Microsoft took the advantage to make the system friendlier to third-party software makers, offering them a brand-new programming model. It has installed enough "extensibility points" — call them design opportunities — so that Microsoft and other software makers can produce new applications for Vista for many years to come.
Yet the length of development time has also forced Microsoft to be generous to those who have committed themselves to making or owning large software collections based on XP. Vista is surprisingly good at accommodating existing software, and where there are problems it can emulate earlier Windows environments (the "Run as" feature, which first appeared in XP).
The greatest problems upgrading were experienced by antivirus makers, whom Microsoft refused entry to Vista's kernel; the anti-virus types kicked up a terrific fuss as recently as last fall. But that's all been settled now, and all the major antivirus makers have Vista-ready products.
And so a lot of the fuss raised by self-appointed visionaries about Vista's alleged failings appears to have been just so much noise, perhaps based on the erroneous belief that Microsoft would simply put new lipstick on XP and call it a new system.
In terms of hardware, Vista comes with a lot of drivers, so it can recognize a greater number of peripherals than its predecessors. Still, when installing new peripherals, users should think about trying to install the drivers supplied on a CD or, more realistically, from the manufacturer's website, where the latest versions should be available.
Globetechnology.com ran into one such problem — in fact, the only problem experienced with installing Vista: A "Vista-ready" package of drivers did not include a Vista-ready driver that controls streaming video in and out of the ATI Radeon video card; it wouldn't have been obvious except for a tiny alarm icon in Vista's Device Manager.
It would have been a fatal flaw when trying to import a video file from a camera. A helpful technician at ATI (now AMD) sheepishly suggested we download ATI's package of drivers for XP, select a certain one, and install it into Vista manually. This would prove to be a little too geeky for many home users, but initial incompatibilities like this are inevitable.
In general, anyone familiar with XP should find Vista familiar, and a few hours of poking around should give users a good idea of the rest of Vista's major features.
