Why?

[bazciscor]

Why would you even want a first generation OS? Do you enjoy reporting bugs? If you're going with Windows, go with XP.

[jdhurst]

The headline from Information Week on Friday, January 5, 2007 was:
"Vista Lagging, XP Unflagging"

There will, in the fullness of time, likely be nothing wrong with Vista. As it stands at this instant, Vista without Aero is truly XP-Lite. Why? Because you don't *need* Aero to work (Cool does not, and has never, made money for businesses) and Vista without Aero will not run (at this instant) the wide variety of business-critical software that XP runs.

So if XP works for you (it certainly does for me), let the cool people frustrate themselve with Vista for a while until more software upgrades are available and more bugs are worked out.

XP was out for a year before I embraced it as a production machine.

... JD Hurst

[arni]

It really depends on your needs.

Reasons to go for it:

1. You are a developer and want to take advantage of the new capabilities of the os for your next project or need to test your existing software agains it.

2. You are a sysadmin and you need to test your production apps agains vista and maybe planning a general rollout so you need to get familiar with all the new os features.

3. You are a geek and love to spend your time with everthing new and shiny.

Cons:

1. You are the conservative user and wait until all your software and hardware is compatible with vista and all comming bugs are squashed out in sp1.

2. You don't see any reason to spend so much money just for an os upgrade when all your apps are doing fine in xp.

3. You are forced to run a certain system configuration (e.g. xp) because of compatibility on your network / company.

Just think of many, many more of these questions. I would advise everyone just to make the calculation and then think about if a upgrade at this time is worth it.

First off you have to be sure if all your current apps are compatible with vista. If there is only one app that doesn't do it's job then it's one to many and i would stay with your current setup. Furthermore it's really important to think about that vista indeed needs some more powerful machines to do it's job. So is it worth the money you have to spend on upgrading your machine.

My suggestion would be if you are not in the group of people which really, really need vista to stay at xp and go for vista with a new pc purchase. Then you can be sure that you are not paying more for an upgrade and most of all that the hardware is optimized for vista to bring you the experience ms is propagating everywhere.

[brentpresley]

Why would you even want a first generation OS? Do you enjoy reporting bugs? If you're going with Windows, go with XP.

LOL - you do know Vista is like 4th generation Windows NT, right?

Windows 2000 - based on Windows NT kernel
Windows XP - based on Windows 2000 (NT) kernel
Windows Vista - based on Windows XP (2000/NT) kernel

I've been using Vista since Beta 1, and AT ITS WORST, it equal to XP in EVERY regard.

But believe what you want, it doesn't matter to me.

[GomJabbar]

If I was buying new hardware, I would want Vista on it. I am speaking here for my personal use, not for corporate use.

Most of the important mainstream applications should be available in Vista compatible versions now or very soon. Vista also includes compatibility mode for use when one wants to run a pre-Vista application. Actually this is done through the Program Compatibility Wizard.

Make older programs run in this version of Windows

Of course, I would expect that not everything will work in Vista, compatibility mode or not. Probably some of the biggest headaches will be with hardware. This will especially be true when installing Vista on an XP box that is over a year old. I realize moving to Vista may require the purchase of new peripherals such as a new printer or scanner.

What I am trying to say is; I would not necessarily go out and buy Vista to run on my current hardware, but if I was to buy a new computer now, I would want Vista on it. Microsoft will be releasing updates and hotfixes at least monthly. Any setup I make on my new computer will not need to be migrated to Vista later. Migrations from one OS to another tend to be problematic IMO. If I bought a new computer now, I would still keep my XP box for running non-compatible applications and peripherals until it was no longer needed.

[whizkid]

I'm getting Vista now because I recently got a new ThinkPad and can get Vista for free for a limited time.

I'm not sure when or even if I'll ever install it, but I know that when I sell the machine, it may add value.

[jdhurst]

<snip>
I've been using Vista since Beta 1, and AT ITS WORST, it equal to XP in EVERY regard.
<snip>

I have been using Vista as well, and I can tell you (the public), backed up by vendor emails, that there is critical software out there that does *not* run with Vista, and further, these vendors have no ETA on a Vista upgrade.

It may be the Vendors' collective fault, or Microsoft's fault. It may just take time, and in the course of time, I will adopt Vista.

But it is not the equal of XP today. If all I had was Vista, I would starve. ... JD Hurst

[dfumento]

I would upgrade the sooner the better because of security issues:

Read NYTimes article: Attack of the Zombie Computers Is Growing Threat
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/techn ... wanted=all

[makaveli559m]

Vista 5219 was super stable on my Thinkpad A20m. RC 1 and up have been running like crap on it.