Vista Upgrade

Many people have been hesitant to switch to Windows Vista. There have been lots of blogs and forum posts about how painful the transition has been. Many people are talking about how incompatible the operating system is, and how many programs are having a tough time running. Personally, I have not had the same experience. I upgraded one of my main computers when Vista was released to corporations in November 2006. I then purchased a new computer and installed Vista 64-bit on it. My expectation was to have a lot of compatibility issues with the 64-bit Vista, but that has not been the case.

Over the past year of using Windows Vista, I have learned to really appreciate the operating system the benefits it provides. Sure, it changes the way we do some things, but it really does give little productivity boosts in a lot of ways. For instance, one of my favorites now (and I stress now, because I hated it at first) is the "breadcrumb" address bar. In Windows Vista, you can navigate to folders above your current location simply by clicking on the name of the folder, drive or object. For instance, you can immediately hop back to the computer object simply by clicking "Computer" in the list, or if that doesn't appear, by clicking the arrow at the far left of the address bar. You no longer navigate by clicking the "Up" button and moving up one folder at a time. At first, I admit, this seemed very difficult to use. In retrospect, however, it was simply because it was new. Now I find myself looking for the "breadcrumbs" whenever I am working on a Windows XP system!

Microsoft has recently released Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, and with this release, my feeling is that the last reasons not to upgrade have been removed. My last, big complaint about Windows Vista was the lack of speed on file transfers, especially over the network from another computer. It seems absolutely ridiculous how slow they were. With the installation of Service Pack 1 on my Vista systems, that problem is a thing of the past. Microsoft has also increased compatibility with Service Pack 1, removing over 150 applications blocks that prevented older applications from running on the system. This doesn't mean that those applications have been fixed. It means that Microsoft has invested the time changing Vista to make sure they work.

Overall, Vista has been incredibly stable both in 32 and 64-bit versions for myself and my office. Yes, we have run into some compatibility problems, but those have mainly been with system level application such as burning programs and antivirus programs. This of course, is where most degraders of Vista point to the problems. I ask you to think back to Windows XP's release however, and you will recall that we went through the exact same pain. In fact, thinking back to some of my clients, XP was actually more painful than Vista has been. So now, with Service Pack 1, I say it is time you give Vista a chance. My father summed it up best recently when he finally got a new computer with Vista. He would call me to complain several times a day, but in his most recent phone call he mentioned how much he is now enjoying Vista. He claims it is better thought out, more consistent and more stable. And that coming from an end-user pretty much says it all!