|
Should
You Upgrade to Windows Vista?
Vista,
the first operating system released by Microsoft since
Windows XP more than five years ago, will impact companies
large and small. Vista brings Windows up to date for
a world with more powerful CPUs and a greater need
for sophisticated media handling.
The
new operating system promises to deliver much-improved
security and programming improvements and has an impressive
collection of new features including a redesigned
user interface using a glasslike transparency look,
speech recognition and a fully integrated, significantly
faster and more thorough search capacity.
"Microsoft
is committed to ensuring the best possible customer
experience with Windows Vista. More than 5,000 hardware
and software products have been Certified for Windows
Vista or have a Works with Windows Vista logo, and
more than 1.5 million devices work with Windows Vista
right now," Microsoft said but after a massive
five-year development effort, Vista may be too much
for your PC right now.
Officially,
Microsoft says that any computer older than two years
may not be able to handle Vista. A computer with 256
megabytes of RAM that works fine with Windows XP,
for example, isn't a good fit with Vista.
Hardware
compatibility may be the biggest problem. Vista has
significant speed and memory demands and often isn't
compatible with old peripherals like printers and
scanners. As a result of such compatibility issues,
Apple is encouraging Windows-based iTunes users to
hold off on upgrading to Vista until the new version
of the iTunes music software is released.
You'll
probably find Vista pre-installed on your next PC
and eventually it will be everywhere but because of
the obstacles facing businesses - hardware hurdles,
installation costs and learning curves - the consensus
seems to be that most companies should wait to purchase
Vista.
If
you can do productive work on your PC right now without
serious virus or malware problems, upgrading to Vista
may be more of a luxury than a necessity.
|
