Do You Keep Windows XP or Upgrade to Windows Vista? by Don Cundiff

History of Vista
Windows Vista is one of the biggest software projects ever taken on by Microsoft. They first started work on it in May of 2001, before the release of Windows XP, under the codename "Longhorn". Originally, it was expected to ship towards the end of 2003 as a minor release between Windows XP and the next version of Windows (codenamed "Blackcomb"). At that time, it was integrating many new features and technologies of "Blackcomb", causing its release to be shelved.
After many delays and concerns, Microsoft announced in August 2004, that development of "Longhorn" was basically starting over and will only re-incorporate the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. Eventually in July 2005, "Longhorn" was renamed Vista and beta testing began in September. On February 22, 2006, Windows Vista was considered feature-complete.
Most of the work left to be done prior to the final release in January 2007, focused on stability, performance, application and driver compatibility, and documentation. In the meantime, Windows XP which was initially released in 2002 is now pushing five years old and is used by over 75% of the Windows operating system market according to Gartner. Making the switch to Vista is a major concern for Microsoft.
Windows Vista Editions
Windows Vista comes packaged in five different editions, three for home users, and two for business. The home editions include Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate. The business editions are Business and Enterprise.
Home Basic edition is the least expensive (suggested retail price of $199, USD), and it really should not be categorized as an upgrade from Windows XP. It lacks most of the new features of Vista, such as Windows Aero glass effects (Flip, Flip 3D, taskbar thumbnail views), Media Center, Tablet PC, Meeting Space, no capability to perform scheduled backups, and more. Essentially, Home Basic is not much of an improvement over Windows XP.
Home Premium edition balances features with price. It has all the features of Home Basic, Windows Aero, Advanced Mobility Center and Tablet PC support, Windows Meeting Space, Media Center and HDTV support, and DVD authoring software. The suggested retail price is $239 (USD).
Ultimate edition includes all the features from both Home Premium and Business editions with a suggested retail price of $399 (USD).
Business edition includes a lot of things such as IIS Web Server, faxing, network projection, and all the features of Home Premium except Media Center. The suggested retail price is $299 (USD).
The Enterprise edition is designed for major corporations and is not included in this article.
Windows Vista, internally known at Microsoft as Windows version 6.0 has been five years in development. With over 50 million lines of code, and approximately 10 GB's in size, it is by far the largest Windows operating system ever. This is primarily due to the "Ultimate Edition", which contains all available components and features, including complete versions of both Tablet PC and Media Center.
The Features in a Nutshell
When it comes to new or improved features, Vista is packed with 100's of them. For this article, I have not listed individual features, but major categories of them.
Security - Improved from Windows XP, the firewall provides outgoing as well as incoming filtering along with Network Access Protection that helps prevent unauthorized computers from connecting to a user's internal network. Also, Windows Service Hardening monitors critical Windows services for abnormal activity, while User Account Control (UAC) focuses on alerting the computer administrator for permission before running programs and tasks. However, even with all these enhancements, security will best be proven by the test of time.
Performance - Vista System Performance Assessment benchmark tests CPU, RAM, Graphics acceleration (2D and 3D) and disk access for optimum performance. There is also SuperFetch that tracks frequently used programs and preloads them, ReadyBoost that lets you use flash memory on a high-speed USB drive, and ReadyDrive that supports hybrid hard drives with built-in flash-memory caches.
Media Center - Now Media Center is integrated within the Home Premium and Ultimate editions instead of a separate OS edition as in Windows XP.
Windows Aero - Stands for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. It's the graphical user interface for Windows Vista that provides modern 3D graphics accelerators for such features as translucent "glass" window frames, live thumbnails, animations and live previews of documents and windows
Windows Instant Search - It allows users to perform instant search functions for applications, documents, favorite links, and e-mails from almost every screen in Windows. You can also create virtual search folders to call up old searches.
Backup and Restore Center - Users can now schedule periodic file backups automatically. The Complete Backup feature backups the entire computer as an image allowing users to automatically recreate machine setup onto a new computer.
Windows Photo Gallery - Using Gallery view users can add titles, ratings, captions, and custom data tags to photos allowing them to organize large amounts of their digital photos into a collection.
Windows Mobility Center- It has a control panel that centralizes information related to mobile computing. Users can adjust brightness, sound, battery level / power scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings, and more.
Networking - Users can now interact with network devices in their PC and on their network. There are many new built-in tools to help diagnose network problems, view computers and devices, connect to various types of networks, diagnose internet connections, set up connections or networks, add devices to networks, and more.
Parental Controls - Parents can restrict access to applications and Web sites, limit the hours kids can log in, and create utilization logs.
DirectX 10 - DirectX 10 is only available on Windows Vista and with claims that games can perform six times better than the same game running in DirectX 9 on Windows XP. Currently, there are almost no games available to test this feature.
Internet Explorer 7 - Big improvement over Internet Explorer 6, although it still far behind Firefox 2. It does have tabbed browsing, many new security features, and it scales down printed output better. However, is still does not support in-page searches. These are just a few of the many new features available. More information about Windows Vista or Windows XP can be found at Home-Computer-Maintenance.com
Hardware Requirements
In keeping with Microsoft's long standing reputation, when a new operating system is introduced, it will also require an additional hardware upgrade.
If you purchased a new PC within the last two years, it probably has a Vista logo on it that states either "Designed for Windows XP, Windows Vista Capable", or "Certified For Windows Vista". These computers have been built to run Windows Vista.
A "Windows Vista Capable" PC is able to utilize the core features of Vista such as new desktop search, security, and networking. It requires the following minimum hardware:
800 MHZ, 32 bit processor
512 MB of system memory
A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable
20 GB hard Drive (15 GB free)
CD-ROM Drive
A "Certified For Windows Vista" PC (Vista Premium Ready) is needed to utilize the many extra features of Vista such as Windows Aero and full media center support. It requires the following minimum hardware:
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
DirectX 9 graphics support with WDDM driver, minimum 128 MB of graphics memory, Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel
40 GB hard drive (15 GB free)
DVD-ROM Drive
Audio output capability
Internet access capability
Beware though, a PC carrying the Vista Premium Ready logo might not come with all the necessary hardware to support specific features such as a TV tuner card, so you would not be able to use the HDTV feature of Media Center. Be sure to compare and check what's supplied with the PC before buying.
Conclusion / Recommendations
The following conclusions are intended for the typical home user or small business owner environments and are solely the opinion of the author. First off, before continuing, much of the new software that is part of Vista can be downloaded and run on a Windows XP machine free: Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, advanced search utilities, Google's Sidebar, Yahoo Widgets, etc.
Windows Vista is a great operating system even taking into consideration that many of the features have been copied from existing Mozilla, MAC, and Linux technologies. Security has been beefed up substantially and one can now monitor the network and system performance like real world computing should be. Parents now have a method of setting controls for what their children can and cannot do or view. With Windows Photo Gallery, HDTV, and Media Center, home users have all their entertainment issues finally addressed.
However, the overall price tag including software and hardware is pretty hefty. To get all these features, the average user will have to spend $239 for the Premium edition or $399 for the Ultimate edition, plus the cost for the new hardware that will support features like Windows Aero and HDTV. Even if they purchase an OEM system from a mass market retailer, there are still the compatibility issues from existing software that you may want to reinstall from your current home computer.
As far as doing an upgrade from Windows XP or doing a clean install, I whole-heartily suggest the clean install. Upgrades have always seen problems for Windows, from functionality to compatibility issues. The Vista clean install procedure has been refined to a point that very little user intervention is needed.
My recommendation would be to wait at least 6-12 months and let the bugs get worked out first. Windows XP has spent five years taking care of and fixing problems, has industry wide support, and is a solid, well designed and highly functional operating system. According to Microsoft's life cycle policy, support for Windows XP will be available for several years to come. There is even a service pack 3 that will be coming out later this year.