Here is the issue I still see with Vista for business users. When Vista was being developed years ago it marked a huge change from the Windows NT based systems we have grown to love such as Windows NT, 2000, and XP. It was supposed to have a fancy new file system, and a lot of bells and whistles that never quite panned out. Back in those days, Vista was called Longhorn, and a lot of technical folks were genuinely excited. We love new stuff, to a point. When Longhorn started dropping its promised features and reverted back to the old NTFS file system we have been using for well over a decade, the fear, uncertainty, and doubt started to fester in our geeky bones. After years of delays (yes, YEARS), Vista was a dud. It did the same things that XP did, only slower and with more clicks. To take advantage of the new Aero interface, you needed to have what amounts to a graphics workstation to make it work fluidly. Folders were needlessly moved around and permissions on them changed drastically in the name of security, while a new foe to usability was born by the name of UAC (User Access Control). Gone were the days of clicking on something and it just doing what you intended. Now the whole computing world you live in turns gray and the computer screams at you (also known as the system beep) as you are asked if you are sure you wanted to do what you did in the first place. Remember how you changed your network settings in XP in just a couple of clicks of the mouse? Vista made sure that something that every road warrior must do, even if they are not networking experts, even more confusing and difficult to do. And what about that program that has run on every Windows version since 1995 and has been running your business since you first opened your doors? Well, it might run if you run it in compatibility mode, but most likely it won’t. You might have to disable every singe security feature and log in as the computer administrator, but even then it might not work. At that point you have to download the freely available Virtual PC and run a licensed version of Windows XP in a virtual machine on your Vista computer. Confused yet? No wonder Apple’s market share has grown so much in the last year.
The truth is, Vista is a great OS if you’ve never owned a Windows based computer before. The needless moving around of menus, settings, and folder structures makes it more of a headache for users who have been so comfortable in the XP environment. The other problem is that most of the reported crashes in the first year of Vista’s life were not because of Microsoft errors, but because of third party software and hardware vendor’s issues. For example, I have found in my experience that Dell Vista machines run really well, while HP’s are very unstable. The reason is most likely that Dell favors Intel chipsets, while Nvidia chipsets are common in HP computers. Nvidia has been reported to be responsible for almost 20% of all reported Vista crashes since its release.
I have been running Vista on my PC’s since its release and have struggled through a lot of its issues on a personal level as well as a professional one. What SP1 brings to the table is stability and a bit more zip to the interface. For those of you who have diligently updated your computer with Windows Update, you probably will not notice a huge difference. The update’s size will vary if you download it through Windows Update, but if you download the full update, it comes in at 434.5 whopping megabytes!
Installation can take up to an hour for the full upgrade, which is surprising because Vista itself installs in about 20 minutes on a decent machine. The process is simple, as it does not ask you anything once it gets going, so you can just set it and go out for some coffee while it does its work. The majority of guinea pigs like me have had success with the upgrade, so I am happy to report that the upgrade is safe for everybody to do.
For those of you who remember Windows XP’s Service Pack 1, this is on par with it as far as it makes the OS better, but not different. XP SP2 on the other hand made a lot of changes, so it makes me hopeful that better things are on the horizon for Vista.
