back to article Microsoft cuts Vista price

Microsoft is knocking $80 off the price of the US edition of Windows Vista Ultimate from $399 to $319, and the Home Premium edition falls $30 from $159 to $129. Price cuts in the rest of the world are expected to follow real soon. Vista has been on the market for about a year now, so a price cut is unsurprising. This cut …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MS have zero confidence in their product

    If they did, they would be cutting XP's price and leaving Vista's as is. But as they know that Vista is so poor that most people would stick with XP they don't have the balls to do this.

  2. dervheid
    Stop

    Not even...

    if it came free with a packet of cornflakes. (prefer branflakes myself, must be getting old!)

    "It's hard to believe that millions of Windows XP users were just waiting for Vista to get a little cheaper before committing themselves."

    No. Were waiting for Micro$oft to do unto Vista as Toshiba have (finally) done unto HD-DVD!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    So for the UK..

    By my reckoning using Micro$hafts usual exchange rate..

    Thats £20 off the bloated one and £7.50 off the crippled ones.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vista version of sw

    Vista only versions of applications.

    I think many users would like to see versions of software that even work at all with Vista.

  5. Mike Crawshaw
    IT Angle

    "Cheap enough now?"

    No *@!$ing way.

    Not without a 2lb bar of gold thrown in, along with Paris' phone number, and a disclaimer indicating I have no obligation to install the thing!!

    <----MS Vista. What IS the IT angle????

  6. Steve ten Have
    Gates Horns

    It's never been about the price

    It's always been about getting the product that you expect and having a product that shows that the people who made it have some respect for their customers.

    I'm still waiting for Apple to release OSX to the general hardware population - there is some serious ping there.

  7. Chris Byers
    Coat

    Oooh. It just makes me want to rush out and buy it.

    I still don't know how they can sitll justify the price difference from home premium to the Ultimate edition (besides AD connectivity, which (most) home users wouldn't need anyway!). I would feel bitter and twisted about it if I'd had to pay for my copy instead of getting it through work.

    I doubt that the dollar to sterling exchange rate would make the cuts in the UK though. Daylight robbery, hence the icon.

  8. gautam

    About time

    Yet it still is a blessing in disguise for the £99 computer makers and Linux. THe more they keep the prices up, the better penetration for other distros and hardware sellers of these cheap machines. It beats me now why software more expensive than hardware?

    Keep it up MS. Doomsday nearing.

  9. Lozzyho
    Thumb Up

    Actually

    I've been using it for a year and it's pretty good. No problems, and IMO it's a far better experience than XP... or OS[uni]X.

    I wouldn't pay for Ultimate, but Home Premium is good value... considering Apple manage to charge shedloads for a service pack, I mean.

    Maybe the kids and fanbois will stop bitching someday, but I doubt it. Far easier to make cheap jokes.

  10. Kyle
    Thumb Down

    Cheap rubbish is still rubbish

    HAH! It's not price cuts that are needed to drive user uptake, it's a non-crappy system. I have to support a couple of Vista Business machines at work and have a partition with it installed at home and it seems to be ok (still clunky, bloated and crap compared to XP SP2 though).

    IF SP1 improves performance and reliability, people might move to it. I doubt that'll happen though...

  11. Paul Delaney
    Coat

    Not nearly enough

    Considering that as long as you don't install the overated Service Pack 1 you can still use a *cough* cracked version...

    Mine's the 18th Century style one with tails, tri-cornered hat and black eye patch

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    Crikey!

    Why is Vista so expensive?

    Even at the 'discount' price of $319 it's still $190 more expensive than Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard at $129...

    You can get a 5-user license of Mac OS X for just $199.

    Surely economies of scale would normally mean that Mac OS X should cost more than Vista?

  13. MarkMac
    Flame

    Still overpriced...

    by several hundred dollars..

    I played briefly with Vista on a brand new laptop. A week was quite long enough to tell me I needed to learn Linux. Vista was slow, annoyingly dialog filled, forced me to upgrade many other apps, didn't work with my wireless network, didn't work with a brand new supposedly vista-compatible printer, hid important stuff etc etc etc. Grrr.

    So now I've been dual-boot Linux/XP for 5 months, and the only reason I drop into XP is because my office VPN requires it for a secure remote desktop. Everything else is either native Linux or runs under Wine. And Compiz rocks, way better than Aero...

  14. Edwin

    @Lozzyho

    Agreed - I've been using it for nearly a year and it's pretty good.

    What would be nice is if MS (and Adobe, and everyone else) would bring EU and US pricing into line. It's painful to see US pricing (even without the current $:€ rate) and have to pay EU pricing...

  15. Craig

    re: difference from home premium to the Ultimate

    Ultimate is the only version with the media center functionality and Remote Desktop available without hacking around with dodgy dlls. That's why I bought it last January. (I've been a happy vista user since)

    I just wish they'd decrease the price of the anytime upgrade. I've got Vista Business installed on a new laptop. It's chock full of software and drivers specifically for the laptop that I want to keep, so I'd rather not install a fresh OS. However, to upgrade to Ultimate is around £140, which considering they already got paid for the original license is a complete rip off :(

  16. Tom

    Far easier to make cheap jokes.

    Vista IS a joke, what do you expect? It's the Paris Hilton of software.

  17. Bill Buchan
    Gates Horns

    Vista...

    I did two months of hell on Vista. As a self-employed consulant/developer, I couldnt afford to have much downtime.

    And so - after it had deleted my user area AGAIN, I switched to OS/X. And run XP in Parallels, and win2k3 test servers in VMWare. The old laptops now have Ubuntu and are quite happy.

    Last couple of customer on-site jobs - they were quite happy with me imaging the shonky old laptop they *wanted* me to use. They now sit on the Mac, and give me remote access, etc.

    Daughters boyfriend - VistaBoy - is a HUGE vista fan. Well, he was till Vista ate his hard drive.

    I cant think of ever letting an MS operating system actually get to the hardware anymore, such is my lack of faith in them.

    Given that Ballmer is still there (even after the $13b fine from EU), I cant see it getting any better...

    ---* Bill

  18. Andrew Moore
    Gates Horns

    Hmmmmmm...

    There's a very pertinent saying that I think completely applies to this- "It's impossible to polish a turd"

  19. Rich

    Actually...

    "Considering that as long as you don't install the overated Service Pack 1 you can still use a *cough* cracked version..."

    Yes you can... i'm running an er... 'legimitate' copy of SP1, fully activated. ;)

  20. Ian Matthews
    Go

    @ Craig

    Sorry to disagree but Home Premium does include all Media Center functionality.

    Works pretty well streaming to extenders too

    Happy Vista user here :)

  21. Sanford Olson

    Make VISTA Ultimate same price as XP Pro and I'd upgrade

    I can get the OEM version of XP Pro for about $140 (NewEgg, ZipZoomFly, etc). When VISTA Ultimate drops into that neighborhood, I would upgrade my home PC. Otherwise, I can find better uses for $300+

  22. John Colby

    The most swearing from our tekkies is when...

    A student brings in a Vista laptop and tries to do some work with it.

    And isn't an elephant a mouse with an Operating System?

  23. Tim Blair
    Thumb Down

    ebay?

    why not let market forces decide?

    ebay?

    50p sounds about right....

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nice change, but more really needed...

    Been using it for well over 18 months now and its been brillient. Yes the whiners will no doubt whine, but stability wise it's been fantastic.

    XP at launch was a hugely bigger pain in the backside, and 2k before it was much worse in comparison yet everyone heralds them for being so wonderful. Quiet simply, they weren't. Just look at XP, it was slated by many for years, and really didn't work properly till SP2.

    The only issues really are those caused by software from third parties which do some half arsed codge to make something work *cough* Symantec...which let's face it, aren't worth installing anyhow.

    Price wise is pretty ignorable as I don't believe I've ever spoken to anyone who has ever bought a retail boxed Windows. It just doesn't happen when the online bucket shops give open access to the OEM copies. And an OEM price v Apple's subscription fee to the OS *cough* lets add some crappy feature and call it a new version, frankly doesn't cut it. But as Craig said above, the price for upgrading from one version to another is way to high. The idea of the feature is great, the pricing for it isn't.

    Vista's big problem though is why do we need it. We have XP, and its "good enough". Not perfect, but it does. That is the real issue MS is facing with it, and one which will only really change over time as machines are replaced.

  25. Inspector_Morse
    Stop

    @Lozzyho

    I wouldn't pay for Ultimate, but Home Premium is good value... considering Apple manage to charge shedloads for a service pack, I mean.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    What??!!!

    Apple has never charged a penny for any update, ever. Upgrades, yes. Updates, never.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Moving on:

    What I believe that the entire industry is missing, is that enough is enough. Whether we are on Windows or OSX, there is vastly more functionality than most people can handle, let alone, understand. Simply throwing more and more features at any OS does not hack it any longer.

    "OOOh look at that!" The window spins!"

    "Oh man! That is sOO yesterday! Where's my Evian water, and Burberry condom?"

    In terms of a GUI, OS 10.5 still beats Vista, yet as a lifelong Mac user I will neither be upgrading to 10.5.x, nor switching boxes. As far as I am concerned I have exactly what I want: a stable platform. a suite of (expensive) applications, and a small but valuable host of very satisfied clients serviced by my 10.4.x. box, if you will pardon the expression.

    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

    Leopard offers this die-hard Mac user nothing other than cost of upgrade, grief in getting early releases to work properly, and expensive upgrades to several applications to get them to work on 10.5, only to discover they work just like they did before. And what is the benefit to my customers?

    Four fifths of five eighths of FA as far as I can see.

    Apart from spinning windows, when I demo a new marketing campaign. I can anticipate the yawns right now.

    Client: "Wow! The window spins! Cool! Now how does this solve my problem?"

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Cut to scene 2:

    Vista?: Exactly the same.

  26. Luther Blissett

    Hasta la Vista baby

    History suggests that to establish an OS against a monopoly incumbent you have to give it away. Are M$ about to discover this cold truth? Pigs take off tomorrow at 0900 sharp.

  27. Highlander

    Holy overpriced tat Batman!

    $399 for VIsta Ultimate!? Does it come with an Nvidia 8800GT?

    Hell, even $319 is utterly stupid for an operating system for a PC. There are PCs that cost less than that. $399 can get you a system plus flat panel display! Who the hell do they think they're kidding with this crap?

    For that matter, does this price cut make Vista better, faster or more likely to work? Does it reduce the memory or disc requirement? Does it make the fancy new GUI work on my formerly top of the range video card? Nope. Nor does it fix any number of the faults that Vista features, nor does it remove any of the crappy DRM that they integrated through to the core.

    They could drop the retail price of Vista Home premium to $99 or less and it wouldn't move many more copies. I mean just how many retail copies of this stinker have they sold? 5? From what I have observed the majority (vast majority) of Vista Victims had no choice in the matter thanks to the 'support' of vendors who started shipping their PCs exclusively with Vista. Worse still is the fact that in many cases (Toshiba I'm looking at YOU) the vendor refuses to make XP drivers available making it hard to upgrade (downgrade?) back to XP.

    Microsoft has jumped the shark. The jump is a big one and started years ago. Microsoft started drifting further from customers and consumers a long time ago, but Vista is a high water mark of sorts showing How much Microsoft's understanding of what consumers/customers want/need from an OS has diverged from reality. Microsoft has become too used to domination and thought that they could force the pace. They were wrong.

    Most people are well aware that buying a PC now gets a system with a process that has a clock speed 100 times that of the Windows 3.11 & OS/2 systems they bought back in the early 90's. The systems have hard disks that are 100 times more capacious and system memory that is similarly 100 times larger. So, our PCs today are at minimum 100 times faster and more capable than those we bought in the mid 90's, why then is it that Windows doesn't respond instantly? I mean if it used to take 20 seconds to open word, then it really ought to take less than a second now. 100 times faster remember....and all those other ordinary operations that Windows performs on our PCs, why are they so slow? Windows is running the show, why on a system that is at least 100 times faster and more capable than before, does it take as long or longer to open a browser, check your email or print a document?

    Most people want their PC to be faster, and don't expect to have to upgrade the memory/HDD/video card just to run Windows.They don't expect things to get slower or harder when moving to a new OS. Power users/Geeks and sys admins *hate* the constant introduction of intrusive admin wizards that make it damn near impossible to find configuration settings, or set up network connections because some twit at Microsoft had this idea to make it 'easier'. Vista goes against all of this. It's bigger, slower and less functional than what went before it. It's harder to use and configure and frustrates admin attempts at every turn. Frankly I hate, hate with a passion, all the crappy wizards that Microsoft continues to impose. Time was when someone who know what they were doing could configure a PC to talk to the net. Now you have to pray that the twit implementing the connection wizard didn't screw up, and that your network configuration matches on of the several pre-defined types that the wizard can cope with. Otherwise you may as well start hitting your head against the wall, because that's what it will feel like while you find a way to force Vista to do what NT, 2000 and XP could do with ease.

    Microsoft is clearly showing desperation here. Frankly they'd be better off simply throwing in the towel and refocusing on keeping XP alive until the next Windows iteration is ready. Drop Vista and make it possible for everyone to upgrade back to XP in the mean time.

  28. Raymondo B

    Microsoft business plan out of date!

    It's quite obvious now that most people don't want to upgrade their operating systems every few years. They just occasionally want small useful bits added to what they've already got. They don't want radical redesigns where nothing works properly any more.

    And the problem Microsoft and the whole PC industry has is that people are hanging on to their PCs longer. You don't need a computer with the power to predict weather patterns just to send a few emails and surf the net. So even sales of operating systems that come with new PCs may start to fall soon..certainly in the West.

    Microsoft needs a new business plan!

  29. Steven Hewittt

    RE: Crikey!

    The reason that Vista is £91 more expensive that OS X is that no other operating system expects the end user to pay for a service pack. 10.5.1 is £85, but 10.6.1 will also be £85. As will 10.7.1.

    Vista is Windows 6.0 compared to XP which was Windows 5.0.

    Leopard is OS X 10.5 compared to Tiger which was OS X 10.4.

    Going from OS X 10 to OS X 11 will cost you a lot more than going from Windows 5.0 to Windows 6.0.

  30. Sceptical Bastard

    It's not about cash

    As others have said (above) it is about usability and quality. A dud is a dud, whether it's a cheap dud or an expensive one.

    I suspect Vista is going the way of Win ME. Knocking a few quid off the price won't make a blind bit of difference.

  31. Doug

    probably for white box vendors

    these vendors have to pay full price to be legal and at those prices, there are huge motivations to install a full Linux distro instead.

  32. Beezle Bob
    Flame

    @ Steve ten Have

    The reason why OSX is more stable is because the hardware it is installed on is very strictly controlled and tested. Vista, XP, et al have to deal with an almost infinite set of hardware configurations, third party drivers etc that it's hardly any wonder there are stability issues.

    If OSX was available for the more 'general hardware population' then it would face the same problems, if not worse given the lack of drivers.

  33. James McGregor
    Stop

    Why would anyone upgrade from XP to Vista anyway?

    What exactly would you gain? If your PC came bundled with XP, you'll most likely need to shove in more RAM just to get Vista out of bed and start playing. Then hunt around for all the drivers for your hardware that worked just fine under XP and inevitably find that one or more of them isn't available for Vista. And then cope with sluggish performance, crappy file operation speeds, non-responsive interface, frequent UAC pop-ups, the crippled disk defragmenter and a veritable smorgesbord of applications that won't install or work properly. But hey, there's that lovely Aero interface and ... um ... lots of other neat stuff. Yeah, right. Frankly, for home users it's just not worth the effort or expense.

    Try completing the following in 10 words or less with something convincing... "I'm definitely upgrading from XP to Vista because ..." Hard, isn't it?

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Meh! still an over priced pile of steaming.....

    All I can say is, I came across Vista and found it such a pain in the arse that I went out and got a Mac Mini *Come to the Dark side! - Echoing in my head*

  35. Kevin Crisp

    @Lozzyho and Edwin

    I'm neither a kid or a Microsoft fanboi - the fact is that the best OS on the market for the home PC at the moment is probably XP followed by OSX - Vista is not as quick, stable or widely accepted as those two.

    I use a Linux Distro myself, but it's not as good as XP... yet.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No.

    What do I get for my money? To quote Ballmer when interviewed on the BBC, "Just look at how rich that interface is.". Yeah, it's very pretty, Steve.

  37. StopthePropaganda
    Thumb Down

    what's really sad

    is that locally, a full install of XP Pro (as opposed to the upgrade, which you can't use to go from Vista to XP) sells for between $60 and $100 *more* than Vista Ultimate.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    @Beezle Bob

    Hear hear. About time someone brought that up.

    Can you imagine the uproar there would be if M$ only allowed their own designed hardware to run the OS? I can only make a good assumption that if they did take that approach, they would get it right and how. Costs would plummet as the testing schedule would be much shorter, they wouldn't need to do Beta's etc etc.

    Let's bear in mind the number of times Vista fails and the percentage of these that are down to drivers, weird hardware.

  39. Herby

    Price of Vista...

    In my opinion, the price ought to be NEGATIVE (i.e. they pay ME). Here at work, I'm stuck with XP since it is the only thing that runs Internet Exploder, and I need that to fill in my timesheet. I'd be just as happy running Linux (which I do at home) to get the work done. Also it runs on cheaper hardware!

    Now things would be REAL complete if Lotus Notes ran under Linux as well.

    (*SIGH*)

  40. Ian Davies
    Stop

    @ Steven Hewittt

    -------------

    The reason that Vista is £91 more expensive that OS X is that no other operating system expects the end user to pay for a service pack. 10.5.1 is £85, but 10.6.1 will also be £85. As will 10.7.1.

    Vista is Windows 6.0 compared to XP which was Windows 5.0.

    Leopard is OS X 10.5 compared to Tiger which was OS X 10.4.

    Going from OS X 10 to OS X 11 will cost you a lot more than going from Windows 5.0 to Windows 6.0.

    -------------

    That's the biggest pile of stupid I've seen on here in quite a while - a real achievement!

    I've never paid for an OS X "service pack" ever. It probably confuses you that all versions of OS X are numbered "10.something" but I didn't pay for 10.5.1 or 10.5.2, just like I didn't pay for 10.4.1 through to 10.4.11, or 10.3.1 to 10.3.9. They were all free "service packs".

    If you think 10.5 is just a couple of "service packs" up from 10.2 and not worth paying for, then thinking obviously isn't your thing, and you should probably stop it now before you fall over and hurt yourself.

  41. JC

    LOL @ MS

    Stevey B, pay me $200 and I'll dig something out of the closet to run F@H on Vista, there's no way in he!! it's going on my primary system.

  42. Phil

    I like Vista but mainly use XP

    Vista isn't nearly as bad now as a lot of people make out. but my biggest complaint is what MS did to the way sound works on Vista.

    I multi boot xp/vista/linux.

    Vista runs everything I throw at it very fast and with no problems, except for the sound. Go over to say Creatives forum and just take a quick look at how many people still aren't happy with the quality of sound through their vista drivers.

    I use Auzen X-meridian and that gives a LOT better sound quality under XP than it does under Vista, which gives the end result of me very rarely booting to Vista due to this one reason.

    If MS re-introduce DirectSound 3D hardware acceleration etc and simply sort this mess out, I would use Vista every day, but as it is, I have to stick to XP

  43. Mectron
    Stop

    Noobs and Techno Dork

    If something does do work, bang on it, until it does. if it still not working, call it rubish or trash or ....

    Vista is not for old hardware

    Vista is not a copy of XP, so no, stuff have changed place.

    Vista is way more secure then XP will ever be

    Vista SP1 Solve a lot of problems

    Vista (in my case and other poster here) is crash free and work just fine

    Of course for now XP seem faster, now load win95 on today's hardware and see how faster it is.

    XP is 7 years old. of course it will be fast and snappy on today's hardware, it does not change the fact the it is obselete

    MacOS, witch is not even a real os but more an assortment of random codes is the same price as Vista ultimate (or more). There is a update of CrapOS every year of so.. It is sold.. last time i checked the SP for windows OS/Software are free.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    It comes down to this...

    Windows is for herd-following morons who don't know any better.

    OS X is for people who want to use their computer rather than fighting it.

    Linux is for people who are better with computers than talking to other humans.

    Nuff said.

  45. golverd
    Coat

    I'll be back...

    Is what M$ must be thinking. The roadmap is already there: first we ask an unreasonable price for a flawy OS, later we do some SP fix to introduce new flaws at core level and lower the price (hey! this is now!), then we give it away for free IF you buy a funny smelling furry toy. Later we'll say: we have a new WinDos! And this one is faster, more stable and secure!

    It sounds like the path: win98 -> winMe -> Win2K/XP to me. And winMe seems to match to Vista....

  46. s
    Stop

    And another happy Vista user

    Kevin Crisp: Why upgrade to Vista? Well I depend on what hardware you are using. Assuming you have a machine with some power Vista will get that bit extra out of it (used XP on a desktop replacement laptop and got a nice performance boost), better stability and no driver issues (even though Asus didn't officially support that machine at the time I went to Vista).

    Sanford Olson: So you compare the retail Vista to the OEM XP Pro and complain abou the price dif? I paid less than EUR200 for my fully legit (and activated) Vista Ultimate. I paid more than EUR250 for the Win2000 OEM disk I brought previously. Id say it's getting cheaper, not the other way around (kind of like Office (Office 4.0 was that expensive in the mid nineties that you got a free quad speed CD Rom with it from most vendors - somewhere in the region of 450 GBP at the time IIRC). Office 2007 Pro = EUR 550. Again cheaper. And that's before you factorin 12 years of inflation.

    As to the MS fine by the stupid Dutch woman (and I like the Dutch - even married to one) for being too closed. Does this mean that Apple is about to be crippled with a fine (iPhone totally closed, Mac hardware that you can't install what you want, unless you install OSX first, OSX that will only run on Apple branded hardware etc etc) for being even more closed? No forgot, people like apple because it's 'kewl'. Sure.

  47. pete
    Unhappy

    The huddled masses

    When people upgrade and OS they want

    a) everything to carry on working

    b) see that its faster, prettier and play with the cool new toys

    c) do all the stuff they used to

    So Microsoft created Vista. It does everything MS needs it to do (They can tell industry how secure it is etc) but at the expense of Users. I hate the blasted thing. With reference to the list above here why.

    a) half my software doesn't work or has "issues". driver are bollocks and not only do you get charged for upgrading your OS, you have to pay for all the hardware to go with it

    b) it takes an age just to do simple things i.e like copy files (wtf?) and it isn't exactly pretty. its far behind MacOS and most Linux desktops and the funny thing is, that most Linux / Office distros are beginning to work more like windows that Microsofts Windows does.

    c) the built in software is no longer there (fax) or its had features removed (backup) or its been moved (hidden?) or its been wrapped in a wizard that stops you changing all the setting you need.

    and why the hell are there four versions? which idiot in MS though this was a good idea? do you see 4 versions of Tiger - no, because that would be stupid. The IS may be the most important thing to MS but to the rest of us its JUST an OS, we should have to think about which one we need.

    So to the guys at Microsoft ...

    For Vista service pack 2, please put all the features back, make it look like XP and please, please never release another OS without asking permission first.

  48. joe
    Alert

    Steven Hewittt What are you talking about?

    OS X 10.5.0 to 10.5.2 on my Mac book cost $0 Nada, zip.

    Read all about it here.

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307430

    Can freely download it here

    http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/nph-reg3rdpty2.pl/product=17382&cat=1&platform=osx&method=sa/SecUpd2008-001Univ.dmg

    No where does it say "Give Steve your credit card number"

    Bottom line regardless of what OS you use, the question is "Are you happy with your choice?" If you choose to run Vista and are happy then "fly be free!" Unfortunately most people hate it and the average Joe doesn't have much of a choice when shopping for a new PC. Would you like your Vista on HP, Dell or Acer? Thats as much choice people have. Dell and HP are vastly more influential with their marketing than the alternatives will ever be, that includes Apple ta'boot.

    M$ knows this and will never release their control of the OEMs. This is why they can release schlock and it barely make a blip on their bottom line. I agree with some astute people that have said that M$ has lot touch with what the customer/consumer wants/needs. I went from XP to Vista then to OS X and have never been happier. I suggest that if you are considering upgrading to Vista and are unsure then forgo the frustration and learn something that is enjoyable and much simpler to learn...... OS X

  49. michael
    Thumb Up

    I'm definitely upgrading from XP to Vista because ...

    Vista was designed wth security in mind whereas with XP it is a bolt on add-on, yes UAC is a pain but that can be turned off if you are an advanced enough user and know not to click on the pop-ups etc.

    Do your research properly with your existing hardware and Vista will be rock solid stable, it has been for me. If you don't do your research and then upgrade and then have problems then why not come onto the register and complain about microsofts (cough your own) incompetance instead.

    Desktop search and indexing, this is great, a few minutes after installing vista i needed to find a specific file out of 100GB worth on my second hard disk. I started typing the name in and BANG there it was before I had finished typing.

    The new start menu, nice and neat. I have alot of programs installed and hated it when the start menu spread out over my screen and if i misclicked I had to start again, no such problems in vista.

    Faster launching of programs with prefetch loading commonly used programs into memory ready for use. I have office 2007, and word for example is ready to go in less than a second.

    Vista starts up and shuts down much quicker than XP, about 20 seconds to start on my computer compared to 50 seconds when I had XP.

    Built in CD and DVD burning software and with a free add on available over the net I can burn ISOs with no extra software needed. No more nero for me.

    Built in parental controls if you have a family, full control over what the little ones can and cannot do.

    A much neater interface than XP, no longer looking as some people have said like a fisher price OS, it looks much more proffesional.

    Advanced system info including reliability monitor allowing you to see when software caused a problem and in a number of cases actually useful information coming back as feedback suggesting you download a patch or an updated version.

    Bitlocker drive encryption with the ultimate version and appropriate hardware.

    Flashy interface, well thats an individual thing, I turned it off, no transparent windows or flashy animations when minimising for me.

    Also remember, if you are building a new computer or even if you just buy a qualifying piece of hardware you can get the OEM version much cheaper than the full retail version.

    Oh and lastly, to those who say it is memory hungry, its true! it is, but considering the price of memory, who cares, £15 per GB for quality named memory!!! I bought 16MB for £400 in 1995 when i upgraded to Win95. I now have 4GB on Vista 64 and it runs like a dream.

    Use some common sense, know what you are doing and Vista will be fine.

  50. James Pickett
    Linux

    Ha Ha

    (in the tones of Nelson Muntz, of course)

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