Vista - Fact or Fiction?
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As the old saying goes, if I had a dime for every person who has come up to me and told me why they are not moving to Windows Vista, I would be a rich man. The problem is that most of those reasons are just not true. There seem to be enough myths surrounding Vista to fill a textbook. Over the next few weeks I am going to address many of them in the hopes of dispelling some of the falsehoods and hopefully convincing some of the doubtfuls to give Vista a try.
The one issue that I know IS very real is the cost... so I'll make you a deal: If you post your issues as a comment to one of my articles then you just may win one of five copies of Windows Vista Ultimate to install on your PC!
So let's pick a single arbitrary myth to discuss here: hardware compatibility.
In the beginning there were a whole lot of computers running Windows XP with any number of peripherals, such as scanners and printers. When Windows Vista was released many people decided it was the right time to either upgrade their existing computers, or in some cases purchase new ones. Unfortunately many of them (including my mother) had older peripheral devices (in my mother's case it was an inkjet printer, but it would go for scanners and all manner of other devices) that did not have device drivers available. Blame Vista.
It might not occur to everyone, but Microsoft does not write device drivers... well, except for Microsoft Hardware which creates the drivers for its own products. It's true, there were hardware manufacturers slow out of the gate to get proper drivers written, and especially in the first few months there was a simple rule: the older your device, the worse your chances of finding a driver for it. Indeed, to this day I am not certain that hardware manufacturers did not withhold drivers for older devices in the hopes that consumers would buy new ones.
How often has Vista crashed on your computer? I can count on one hand how often I have seen a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) on Windows Vista. Care to guess the root cause of each and every one? If you guessed Device Drivers then you get the prize! Again, while Microsoft can write the most stable code possible, and then provide guidelines to hardware manufacturers, it is simply not possible to regulate and test every driver. That is why signed drivers are always a better idea than unsigned drivers. When I was beta testing Vista on my Media Center PC I had terrible problems with BSODs until the video card manufacturer released an updated driver. The moment they did my Media Experience has been a smooth ride.
Let me be clear here about one thing. I am not going to be an apologist for Microsoft with respect to Windows Vista. I like the product - I do prefer it to Windows XP - while realizing there are downsides to it. As a very early beta tester I have now had nearly three years to get used to it, and did so to the point that when I go back to Windows XP - an OS I used to know like the back of my hand - I often pause to remember 'the old ways'. I had no such issues going from Windows 2000 to XP and back, because they were so similar; indeed, XP was written on top of Windows 2000. That is not the case with Vista, which has been rewritten from scratch. A lot of legacy issues and inefficiencies that date back three versions or more are gone, while building in a level of both stability and security previously unheard of in Windows.
The problem then is that when rewriting the operating system several things were done differently. Microsoft is not the first company to move things around for comfort, efficiency, and logic; remember the old gear shifts behind the steering wheel in cars?
Of course, the gearshift being a physical handle it was easier to look down and see a new handle where the bench seat used to go across and make the connection. So many features in Windows Vista are much harder to find, so (in what I consider a huge improvement) the Start Pearl now has a built-in live Search feature... if you are looking for the Display Properties, just type that in and it will pop up.
So now that I have covered a couple of Vista Myths, tell me about yours... why aren't you deploying yet? Make it good and you might win a copy of Vista to try out for yourself! Just leave a comment below and make sure I have your e-mail address... I will try to answer all questions, either in reply comments or in future articles, and hopefully help out one or two converts ;)