To Windows Vista or not to Windows Vista?

Microsoft Windows Vista is available for public purchase, but what’s the big deal?
“Safety and security is the overriding feature that most people will want to have Windows Vista for,” said Jim Allchin, Microsoft’s ex-Windows chief executive.

However, there exist MANY counter opinions, such as:
“Upgrading to Vista is pretty expensive, not only the new software but often new hardware as well,” said Gartner analyst John Pescatore. “If you put IE 7 on a Windows XP SP2 PC, along with the usual third-party firewall, antiviral and antispyware tools, you can have a perfectly secure PC if you keep up with the patches.”

“The added security alone is not worth the money when comparing Vista with Windows XP SP2,” said Lambert, a member of the CNET News.com Vista Views panel.

And if you click on the following Google search, you will see that today (Jan 30, 2007) the second day of the Windows Vista public release, there are 2 million sites mentioning the words Windows, Vista and vulnerability.

The first among them is titled “Microsoft acknowledges Windows Vista vulnerability”.

Many hackers are praising Microsoft for their security work in Vista, however:
____Microsoft has a long history of producing problematic products and then fixing parts of them as time goes on - their whole history as a matter of fact. If you are a long-time PC computer user, 9.999 times our of 10 your first version of Windows was NOT version 1 or 2, but rather version 3.0; or 3.1; or 3.11.
____The first week of the initial public beta-test of Windows Vista saw 5 viruses appear for it.
____Microsoft had already released a security patch for Vista before it was released to the public.
____Microsoft is currently working on Vista Service Pack 1 which may be released at the end of the year.
____Supposedly, only Windows Vista Ultimate (the most expensive version) includes the maximum level of built-in protection that Microsoft mentions is available in its new version of Windows.

Windows Vista stability
Then there is the stability factor of the computer which will be tremendously effected by the Vista “content protection”. This is software which assumes that you are a multimedia criminal without any intervention of a judge or jury, and drastically limits what types of media files you can store and/or view on your computer.

For a very in-depth and revealing analysis (warning - somewhat technical) of this problem, click here.

Windows Vista End User License Agreement
Along with that, The End User License Agreement (EULA) of Windows Vista will allow Microsoft, third-party software vendors and others in the Microsoft approved affiliates list access to and ability to make changes to files on your computer without your knowledge or consent. (Other than the fact that you clicked “Agree” when you first installed Windows Vista or started your new computer with Windows Vista installed on it - most likely more than 99.5% of software users never read the license agreement.)

Windows Vista limitations
As well, there is the problem with the OEM version of Vista - you are severely limited with what you can do with it in case you have hardware problems. And if you purchase the upgrade version of Vista, you will have to have a previous version of Windows installed before you can upgrade - you CANNOT do a clean install with the upgrade disk of Windows Vista as you could with all previous versions of Windows. (edit - there is a hacked way of doing a clean install from an upgrade CD currently.)

Because of all these reasons, my computer service company has been calling Windows Vista our next “job-security” ticket for months now.

My suggestions at this time are the following:
____Stay as far away as possible from Windows Vista.
____If you absolutely must purchase a new computer for your office, downgrade it to Windows XP Professional before you start using it.
____If your Windows XP computer is running slow, CALL YOUR TECHNICIAN!!! Don’t throw it out unless they tell you it’s junk…

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References:
“Vista’s legal fine print raises red flags”

“Experts: Don’t buy Vista for the security”

“Wait! Don’t buy Windows Vista!”

“Don’t buy Windows Vista! (6 Reasons to Wait) - Security Feed …”

“I don’t want my MTV” Ed Botts Microsoft report on ZDNet.com

“Surprises Inside Microsoft Vista’s EULA”