The latest incarnation of Windows, Windows Vista, hit the streets around the world recently. Microsoft chose “Wow” as the central theme to their promotional campaign – is there enough Wow for you to want it, and what are the implications if you do?
Widows Vista follows on from Windows XP. This time, it is rather more than a simple upgrade with new-and-improved features and additional bells and whistles. Vista has been completely rebuilt from the ground up to provide a more secure and usable system (according to Microsoft). Most people are familiar with the frequent security scares and vulnerabilities arising in other versions of Windows. The older the version, the more you have to worry about.
Vista takes a radically different approach to security. By default in all other versions, a new Windows installation allows the first user (often the only user) to have full “administrator” rights. In other words, to install anything, delete anything, and see anything. Vista takes the opposite, so that if you want to install or remove or change something that may affect the system or all users, you will be prompted for a special administrator password. By all accounts, while this approach successfully improves security, it is really really annoying and accompanied by Microsoft's ambiguous or meaningless pop-up messages and prompts. Word is that this security feature will simply be disabled by most people and therefore the additional security bypassed.
Underlying security is still better though, and if nothing else it will take the baddies a while to work out how to get into Vista like they can into other versions. However, an important aspect of Vista is its hardware requirements. It would be unwise to assume that a computer capable of running XP will run Vista – the graphical needs alone are dramatically increased in Vista, if you want to see its shiny new “Aero” look-and-feel. Mac users will already be long familiar with it, but in short Aero brings to Windows groovy animations and effets eg. when minimising or overlaying windows.
Memory needs are also much greater, and of course processor. The usual official “minimum requirements” make it sound like Vista will run on my relatively up-to-date computers, and it will, but you may find the experience rather frustrating.
Generally, advice from the IT industry seems to be that Windows Vista is a worthy product, with a cool interface and some new additions. Microsoft put serious effort into usability, and each product revision includes better, easier and more intuitive ways of doing things – if you make the effort to find out about them. However, the advice is also that the differences are simply not worth the cost of upgrading an existing computer, even if it does have the hardware grunt to do the job. Buy a new computer, and naturally you should opt for Vista (assuming you want Windows, that is). If you already have a computer, at best Vista is the equivalent of Windows XP Service Pack 3 and is sure to slow things down a bit. “Wow” is not likely to be your reaction when you meet Vista for the first time.
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