Microsoft Vista - Support & Opinion

We have been asked our opinion on Microsoft Vista more than once now and that's a leading question, which we'll attempt to answer here and now. Why attempt? Well ... oh, just read on, please.

Firstly and most importantly, we haven't tested Vista - We don't yet own a copy. Why not? For that, read the second point as it applies equally to this company as any other. That said, it is an inevitability that we will have to but not before our customers have either saddled themselves with it or been forced into buying it. At that point, we'll be able to post our opinions and advice on its set-up, ease of use, functionality, security et al.

What follows is simply an opinion; it's based on personal experience, sound reasoning and market intelligence but it's still only an opinion. Vista is Microsoft's first new desktop operating system in five years, since XP - fact. Microsoft have a habit of beta-testing their products on their paying users - widely held opinion. Vista is significantly more resource-hungry than XP or any of it's predecessors - substantiated opinion. Microsoft are retiring Vista's predecessors by declaring them end-of-life and withdrawing support - fact.

Your point you ask? In our opinion, this adds up to Microsoft forcefully creating a market, not only for its operating system but also for the companies that have signed up to sell it and hardware capable of running it. So, to upgrade your computer to Vista, unless you're comfortably running XP with Service Pack 2 applied, and therefore still supported and not required to upgrade in the first place, you'll simply have to replace the computer too. That's a minimum outlay of about £350, on top of the cost of the operating system.

So what's your advice? Is there an alternative? We can't tell you not to buy Vista but you have to be aware that there will almost certainly be teething problems if you do. There are alternatives but they're the subject of another post ...