Weighing Vista

Having now discovered how easy it is to simply hit the back key on your keyboard and simply loose the longest blog entry that you have ever made…I start to rewrite this post. I am sure, you, the reader, will benefit for having a more concise entry, but for me the writer, arghhhhhh. That little ‘save and continue editing…I wonder what that is for.

There has been an a hardly unanticipated flurry of articles as of late detailing with the question of whether or not to upgrade to Microsoft Vista when it is released at the end of the month. I am weighing in simply because I have something to say from hands-on experience. I have been running Vista for the past half a year or so on my Media Centre as part of the Beta programme. Surprisingly (or not) the question being asked is whether existing Windows users should make the switch – not whether OSX or Linux users would consider the change – interesting.

I decided to participate because I had the Media Centre around and it was not involved in carrying out tasks that I couldn’t do without. It has the horsepower and also the potential to benefit from some of the new features of Vista. So…the sacrifice of bug testing seemed like something that could allow me at least to play with some potentially promising things before my neighbour. Cool.

I ran through a long integration of beta releases and experience my share of drop-dead faults. Thankfully, releases and bug fixes were relatively speedy and frequent. Moreover, I liked the new functionality offered in the MC component of Vista. Unfortunately, some of it disappeared as part of the revision cycle, but maybe we’ll see it come back in the future.

Most germane to this discussion, I made the decision to upgrade my HP z552 to the retail version of Vista a few weeks ago. I had been running RC2 since November and gradually the quality of the video going through my video card was degrading. It was a strange thing and coupled with a few other little issues, I figured that it simply made sense to take the plunge. From a hardware perspective, the z552 is just over a 2/5 (2.3 I seem to remember) on the Vista hardware evaluator. Still that basically impacts on the really whiz bang grahic effects such as the 3D file system manipulation. I had to try it, but will admit that it was not something that returned a productoivoty boost to my interaction with the system so was not a deal breaker. So I moved all recorded video off the internal drive (hoping that it was not the culprit and I could retain it) wiped the main drive and did a fresh install. I have to admit that I was impressed with the process. It was the least amount of user intervention to go from boot DVD to being running in the OS. Scary to say, but less involved than my last install of OSX.

Since reinstall, the system is running stable, has re-established co-operation with the XBox360 and the iMac. All are talking and playing nicely. I am impressed. Moreover, strange anomallies that prompted my jump to retail Vista have vanished. I am happy…and knocking on wood as we speak.

Ashton Mills has weighed in today with an article entitled “10 Reasons Not to Get Vista.” A Good article that starts off asking the right question – what does Vista llow the user to do that XP does not. More precisely what can you add to XP to give it what is being bundled with Vista. A very good point stateed simply as why upgrade if the return on the investment is less than the outlay. There are outlays beyond simply the price tag…the time lost in installing, dealing with incompatibilities, acquiring new versions of third-party software…and on and on. However, one of his key objection seems to be driver incompatibility or unavailability. Not the right objection for such a well considered list really, – things get fixed eventually and more importantly, the missing drivers seem to focus on gaming. Gaming’s fine, but is it what most PC owners use their machines for. Serious gamers…are they running PC’s or have they got a specialized console? Furthermore, how many of those serious gamers that rely solely on their Windows PC are represented in the market. The point is, I am not sure that this objection really holds water. However, I do like the objections raised…make sure that it does something that you can actually do…read through the marketingspeak and think about it. Furthermore and more importantly, recognize the real cost of the upgrade beyond the sticker price…hardware, time, labour, potential downtime, etc and decide that this investment has a greater return.

Dan Warne has written a companion piece on “10 Reasons You Should Get Vista.” Again its a question of upgrading from XP than switching to Vista for its merits as an OS comparable to those other than Windows-based. This I think is unfortunate, largely. It makes the selling job easier…XP has flaws. Everyone will complain about it, many of whom actually use other OS’s. However, this sets Vista’s sights pretty low and does a disservice to some well thought out additions to the OS. Moreover, looking at the selling points…he makes the bold statement that Mills condemnation of the OS referenced above is fair, but attributes the faults to Microsoft’s own marketers being unable to sell their own product. However, all but three of his positive comments relate to things that have been added that should have been there before, can be added to XP via third party software or were glaring problems created by previous version s of the OS. So ultimately what this question becomes from a larger perspective…has Microsoft changed the way it developes software or does business enough to convince a user that it can be trsuetd now and in the future to provide a product to run reliable on your PC. Charging you today to solve problems in a previous version seems to be rather dodgy (but lucrative if you can get away with it) business practice. Moreover, based on past performance, do I feel I am getting a product that is less flawed than one that was touting as being flawless in the past. If you move past these big issues, the simple question of additional functionality or more solid operation versus the costs identified above becomes the question at hand. However, Warne seems to avoid cutting through marketing crap (as he touts) to actually sell the product any better than he criticizes Microsoft for failing to do.

As far as I am concerned, Vista did give me some nice feature additions to what XP MCE gave me on my media centre. I like the categories added to the programme guide. I like the fact that PVR functionality is provided out of the box (as opposed to still being absent from OSX – or even iTV for that matter). The look and operation on my TV is pretty cool and aside from a couple niggling issues, I have a very useful and stable entertainment system. The install was actually quite laudable and media handling is very smooth. I am venting a little as no one seems to be asking the bigger questions or selling against the proper product. Selling me a Ford today by telling me that it solves all the problems you soaked me on when I blew a bundle on your flawed product last year is not a strong pitch.