I’ve been a big Microsoft fan over the years. I worked my way through numerous versions of DOS and then Windows. I’ve probably at one time or another played with a fair chunk of Microsoft’s other released technologies and while I’ve not been a huge fan of some of them, I could see that they at least made sense to some.

I first came to Windows via version 2. I played around with it for a bit, but quickly came to the conclusion, that while it had some neat features, it was pretty much useless. Remember this is when DOS and text based user interfaces were king. It wasn’t until I joined a design firm, using Aldus PageMaker, under Windows 2.11, that I could finally see that maybe there was something to Windows after all.

Windows wasn’t my introduction to GUI interfaces. I previously used Digital Research’s GEM and their Ventura desktop publishing system, which I have to say was amazing for it’s time. The thing that killed Ventura was it’s slow conversion to Windows, but that’s a whole different story.

While Windows 3 was a huge leap over version 2, it wasn’t until Windows 95, that all the stars aligned and the operating system was really ready for everyday computer users. Windows 98, further refined things, but Windows ME however, well lets just not go there. Running almost in parallel was a new operating system, co-developed by Microsoft and IBM called OS/2. This was going to be the next big thing in operating systems, however Microsoft and IBM had a falling out. IBM continued to push OS/2, while Microsoft concentrated on their new OS, Windows NT, taking a lot of what they’d learned with OS/2.

With Windows NT, Windows finally had the reliability that was sorely needed. Windows NT, turned into Windows 2000 and suddenly more and more everyday users and developers, where using this as their primary operating system. When Microsoft decided to overhaul their consumer operating system, they ditched the 16 bit code base of Windows 3 and instead used the 32 bit code base of Windows NT, to produce the new and much improved Windows XP. This wasn’t without it’s headaches, as is not surprising, but within a year or so, Windows XP was rock solid and instead of having to reboot my machine 8 or 9 times a day, could leave my machine on and count the reboots during a month on one hand, and even these were usually because some piece of software wanted me to reboot to complete an install.

So life with Windows XP was grand. Finally Windows was fast, reliable and a joy to use. Admittedly Microsoft couldn’t rest on it’s laurels and they certainly didn’t shirk away from throwing resources at their next generation operating system, which went by the code name, Longhorn, or what we know now as Windows Vista.

Vista has been long anticipated, but the final version has really failed to live up to expectations and I say this from experience. Vista launched in January of 2007 and I have to be honest, from what I’d learned in the press, felt no compelling reason to upgrade from Windows XP. I did however finally get my hands on Vista when I purchased a new laptop, 10 months ago, so comments here are not without personal experience.

The first thing that I have to say, is that the user interface is really nice, or should I say prettier than XP. It’s still however not a patch on the Mac’s. I’m not a Mac convert by any means. I can remember swearing to my kids, that a Mac would never enter our household. My stance softened considerably when Apple launched their new operating system, OS X, an OS with it’s roots firmly in BSD, a variant of Unix. But what most caught my eye, was the gorgeous user interface (UI), something for which Apple is now well known. When Apple decided to ditch the PowerPC processors in favor of Intel, that raised the Mac to a whole new level.

Vista has come a long way in making their operating system look sexy, but it comes at a considerable cost. My laptop is not underpowered by any means, but when rated by Windows, the machine gets a pathetic 2.4 out of 5 for the Windows Experience Index. When you look at the breakdown of this score, it’s plain to see that the weak link is the graphics card, which in this case is a nVidia 650, so not a complete pile of junk. Fortunately although the new interface is nice, it does begin to get in the way. Being a Windows developer, I’m immersed in various user interfaces all the time. With Vista, it’s all fluff and no substance. Turning off all these niceties, left me with a system, with noticeably more pep.

After using Vista for 10 months, I have had my fair share of problems. Buying a new machine, at least all of the hardware has worked off the bat. It’s the day to day usage that I’ve noticed the most problems. One of the biggest bug bears is the machine sometimes just freezes while it decides what it wants to do next, this is something that just drives me crazy. Also copying files around my home network can be unbelievable slow, even though all devices are 100mbit compliant. I’ve even suffered a few BSODs or Blue Screen of Death, a screen I haven’t seen on my home machines since Windows 98. One of the other real pains I’ve had, is trying to write a regular music CD.

Things improved somewhat with the release of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1. However, while the service pack is a weighty download, you’d be hard pressed to see any differences in your machine after the install is complete. I’m never sure if the machine feels a little more robust, or whether it’s my subconscious thinking “It’s a service pack, it must be better”. I do still have the occasional BSOD, and after the last one, my internal wireless network card has failed. Yes this could be a total coincidence, but it’s another nail in the feel good factor.

Much has been written about the pros (mmm, I’ll need to think hard about that one) and the cons, of which there have been many. In my mind though, it boils down to this. If you receive Vista with a new PC or laptop purchase, there’s no real cause for concern, unless you have a lot of legacy hardware, you also want to use with the machine, like printers, scanners, etc. Also if you are a high end gamer, XP is apparently somewhat faster with certain games. For software, I haven’t noticed any real incompatibilities. I do have one quirk with a particular piece of development software, which creates GUI and console apps. The console apps, I am unable to expand to full screen. This isn’t a real problem, as most of the people I send the resulting software too, are all on XP, so no biggie. There also were a few pieces of development software that performed oddly, but these were pretty quickly patched, soon after Vista was first released and now work fine.

Much is being written about the demise, or rather cessation of support by Microsoft of their Windows XP operating system. I don’t think even Microsoft have the ability to kill this one stone dead. While many people are getting Vista with their new computers, the majority of people I know are sticking with Windows XP for their existing machines and choosing not to upgrade. I don’t see this situation changing any time soon, but with the new Windows 7 operating system on the horizon (currently slated for 2010, but maybe sooner), I think we’ll look back and compare Vista with Windows ME, which worked pretty well on the hardware on which it was sold, but stunk to high heaven on the majority of machines that were updated.

Before signing off, I cannot fail to mention the numerous version of Windows vista available. With Windows XP, all was relatively straightforward. You had Windows XP Home and Professional. Apart from the bundling of IIS IInternet Information Server) on Professional, there was not much to differentiate between the two. There are also several versions of the Server variant of Windows, but this is not really geared towards the masses, so it’s safe to overlook them here. With Windows Vista, there are 4 consumer versions, Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate and Business. The cheapest version Home Basic is a whacking $199.95 USD, with the update weighing in at $99.95 USD, which is horrendous, for a fairly crippled version of Windows. The Ultimate version is a massive $319.95 USD and the update is $219.95 USD. Yes all of these prices are recommended retails, so you can hunt around online for a better deal. In comparison, for the Apple Mac, OSX Leopard comes in one consumer intended version and costs just $129 USD. Life is just so much simpler.

So bottom line, if you are currently using Vista, and have no qualms, all is well and good. If you are using Windows XP, I can see no real reason to update to Vista.

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