When should you upgrade to Vista?



Posted: Monday, January 12, 2009

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If you have a PC with Windows XP installed, and it works well enough for what you want to do, leave it alone. Keep your Windows XP machine updated with the latest security patches, as soon as they're tested and found to be reliable.

But don't throw it in the trash heap yet.

Some programs that Microsoft created for Vista run just fine on Windows XP.

Windows Defender, the antispyware product, works on XP. Vista's initial version of Windows Media Player, WMP 11, runs rings around its earlier incarnation, as does Internet Explorer 7 - but you can run both on Windows XP. Don't pay for Vista if you have an XP system and you only want the latest versions of Defender, WMP, or IE. You have better ways to throw away your greenbacks.

More than that, if the computer you have only supports Vista Home Basic ( Probably because of an older video card), don't bother with Vista; stick with Windows XP. You won't see much benefit - literally and figuratively. On the other hand, if you want to take advantage of the many, manifest, and truly compelling goodies in Vista, you could consider upgrading in the following cases:

? If you own a fairly modern PC (say, an Intel Pentium 4 running at 1.8 GHz or so, or an AMD Opteron 144 or higher), with several hundred megabytes of free disk space.

? If you have 1GB of memory or you're willing to shell out the grub to get it.

? If your video card can handle the load. Many laptops simply can't run Vista, and video upgrades rate as too expensive - or just plain impossible.

I don't recommend that you try to upgrade to Vista unless you have enough video power to drive the Aero Glass interface. For most Windows XP users, that's the crucial upgrade decision point:

Imran Rashid has a working knowledge about windows operating systems.For more information visit www.ciscohighway.com
Imran Rashid has a working knowledge about windows operating systems.For more information visit
www.ciscohighway.com
www.windowshighway.com
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by straight talk
 3 years 29 days ago.
111 fans. Follow straight talk on twitter!
I have Vista now and find some variables that are good and bad. I udnerstand theya re taking it off and going to anotehr version? Perhaps you can write to that?
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