To Vista or not to Vista.

Well ....

Microsoft's Vista has been out for some time and most of all the initial bugs have been tweaked out of the OS.

Much like all of Microsoft's previous operating systems the first release was buggy and unstable.

In the early days of windows ...

• Windows 3.0 was buggy... you had to go to Windows 3.1 or 3.11 for workgroups.

• Windows 95 you had to wait till release "B".

• Windows Me did that ever get stable?

Then on to the NT platforms...

• NT 3.5 was bad but 3.51 was bullet proof! I still know a few servers running that!!!

• NT4 you had to wait till service pack 2 and really became stable at SP4 - SP6.

• Windows 2000 also at SP2 it got more stable till it got to SP4.

• Windows XP had as much bad feelings as Vista. SP1 for XP worked out most of the bugs and really became stable at SP2. The just relased SP3 and seems to be again very bullet proof. (My feeling is that that will be the last GREAT operating system that Microsoft will release. This is for another blog posting)

So now, back to Vista. It has been a while and SP1 is out for Vista and drivers seem to be out there for most all older equipment. I think that like XP, Vista will be at its best when SP2 is relased. I think it will give Vista the "WoW" factor and make it more liked.

I get asked alot if I should be running Vista. I am finally at a point where I can say that it really depends on the computer that you have but yes. I do feel that Vista is now mostly stable and can be run in most home and most small business enviorments. I know that many large companies still use Windows XP across there huge network. Their reasons mainly are based on a cost factor. The cost for upgrading the hardware to work with Vista, the IT dept. to upgrade the systems (labor). The cost to train the end users the changes. The cost to the licences for Vista on 1000-5000 computers!!!

So you ask...

What OS am I running?

I run multiple...

I have one Desktop with Vista. One laptop with Windows XP. One laptop with linux Ubuntu. One iMac with OSx. I have my kids on Dell GX270 with XP and my wife on her laptop with Windows XP. I still find that I can do most everything I want on XP. Vista just has the cool factor. My home server is Linux VMware host server with Windows 2003 SBS on it and a linux Asterisk home VOIP PBX machine.

My recomendations...

Make sure you have a system that can run Vista. Minimum 2Gigs of memory and a non celeron based system. Get a dual core Intel or AMD cpu. If you can ... get a quad core! (the geek factor) Storage depends on what you are doing with it but it is true bigger is better. You can store more music or videos or what ever you like. Just make sure you can back it all up somewhere else, like a home server or a network storage device. I like the drobo with the the drobo share attached to the network.

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