Assessing Windows Vista
I will soon be giving a presentation on the status of Vista to several groups. In preparing for it, I came across this interesting detailed assessment of Vista before and after SP1. The article includes some interviews with Microsoft people. The article gives poor marks to the original version of Vista but says time and SP1 have fixed many problems. The conclusion of the article:
After spending the last six weeks getting down and dirty with the OS—on multiple hardware configurations, in both 64-bit and 32-bit flavors, and on mobile and desktop systems—we’re willing to give it a second chance. There are still tons of things about the OS we’re not happy with—starting with the now-$350 Ultimate SKU and working down from there—but from a performance, stability, and security standpoint, we’re satisfied with where Vista is today. You no longer need to sacrifice performance or stability if you want to run the latest version of Windows.
If you already have Vista, there’s no reason not to use it, but should you go out and buy Vista today? Probably not. With Windows 7’s launch scheduled for early 2010, we’re actually closer to that date than we are to Vista’s launch. If you’ve ridden out the storm on XP so far, it probably isn’t worth investing in Vista for just a year and a half of use.
That last paragraph coincides with my own views. Windows XP is perfectly adequate for most home PC users. Unless you need a new computer, wait until Windows 7 is out. However, if you do need a new computer, get it with Vista Home Premium and don’t try to downgrade to XP.
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Given the problems with Vista up until SP1, and learning the lessons there, I wonder if by the same logic we should in fact be waiting until Windows 7 SP1 to upgrade.