Vista is finally out, and every one wants to know whether they should upgrade. As the token nerd in my circle of family and friends, it often falls to me to answer these kinds of thorny questions.

Recently my uncle pulled me aside at a family gathering and asked “Should I upgrade to Visa?”. He’d heard all the media hype about Vista, and while he was not even sure what Vista was about, he had idea that upgrading to Vista would be a good thing. My advice to him was a resounding no, which would also be my answer to many other non-technical users. Here’s why.

Many existing PCs should be able to run Vista reasonably well as long as they’ve got a 1 GHz processor, 1 Gb of memory, and a Aero-compatible graphics card. A memory upgrade is relatively cheap way forward if the computer has the processor but not the memory.  I know the official specs are lower than this, and I know some PC manufacturers are recommending more memory, but for the sake of argument, let’s say that we can get away with 1 GHz/ 1 Gb spec.

In the case of my uncle it wasn’t a really a hardware issue. His 1GHz machine/ 512 kb could easily be upgraded to 1 Gb or more.

My uncle asked me what benefits he would get by installing Vista.

He uses his computer to surf the web, send emails, and write the occasional letter. He connects to the Internet using dial-up.

I really struggled to come up with an answer for him.

“It has a new and improved interface,” I managed to stammer. He looked at me blankly. “It looks cool,” I explained.

In fact come to think of it, I’m not even sure what benefits Vista would offer a more advanced user like myself. Don’t get me wrong, I think Vista is a good product, but there’s nothing so compelling about it that makes me think “Gee, I really need that right now.”

The only “must have” feature about Vista is that eventually it will become the de facto industry standard just through Microsoft’s domination of the operating system market, which I hasten to add, isn’t a bad thing necessarily.

The third factor, I explained to my uncle, is that the true cost of installing Vista is much higher than its retail price.

Don’t believe Microsoft’s assurances that upgrading is a smooth process. Already there are many reports of hardware drivers not working properly, and software not working properly (online games and iTunes are recent examples).

My colleague Alex Zaharov-Reutt, who has many years experience with computers, is the man I turn to for technical advice. He recently upgraded his notebook, and now Bluetooth and the sound card don’t work. He’s spent many hours trying to get these functions to work, unsuccessfully. Now if he can’t do it, what chance does my uncle have? What chance do the rest of us have?

For me it comes down to this: the unclear benefits of Vista don’t justify the possible problems with existing hardware and software, and resulting hassle, inconvenience, and downtime.

On the other hand, if you like tinkering with your computer, and have time on your hands, by all means upgrade to Vista.

My final advice to my uncle was that he should wait until he buys his next computer, which will have Vista preinstalled (which incidentally, is how I plan to become a Vista user).

My uncle didn’t like this suggestion, since he’d “only” bought his existing computer three years ago - but I decided to save THAT conversation for the next family get together.

Related:

Windows 7 release announcement is bad for Vista

Save yourself the hassle of a Vista anytime upgrade

US Agency shuns Vista, keeping XP for three more years

Microsoft forces Messenger upgrade on Vista and XP users

Microsoft says upgrade to Vista because Windows 7 is pretty much the same

Entry was posted on Saturday, February 17th, 2007 at 8:03 pm under Upgrading, Vista.  Print This Post

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