Georgetown Independent

Issue date: 2/28/07 Section: Commentary

Microsoft is using the catchphrase "The 'Wow' starts now" to market Vista, their new operating system. There is, however, nothing awe-inspiring about this software. In fact, it's more likely to elicit emotions that range from anger to revulsion. There is no need to "upgrade" to Vista, no matter how much Microsoft or other salesmen would like you to think the contrary. Installing Vista on any machine that you own, or purchasing one with it pre-installed, is costly, detrimental to your freedoms and, most importantly, completely unnecessary. If you're thinking about getting Vista, I have three (loud) words for you: DON'T DO IT!

Vista is one expensive piece of software. If you buy it straight off the shelf, it will set you back one hundred to four hundred dollars, depending on which version you get and if you are "upgrading" from a previous version of Windows. You might also pay this price when buying a new PC if Vista comes with it. Also, Vista consumes a huge amount of hardware resources, so the old processor and memory that you were running Windows 2000 on just might not cut it with Vista. Dell recommends that users have 2GB of memory while some, such as consultant David Short of IBM, think that twice that amount (4GB) is Vista's "sweet spot." The bottom line is any way you look at it, Vista will have you forking over a sizable chunk of cash.

Expense alone is no reason to shun any product, provided it yields value commensurate with its cost. But Vista has virtually no features that would warrant its cost. This is the grand irony of Vista: it provides essentially no value above and beyond its predecessor, Windows XP. XP, despite its flaws, can probably achieve all of the things a typical user needs a computer to do reasonably well: instant message, download files, browse the Internet, play video games, etc. In this sense, the push to "upgrade" to Vista is exposed for what it really is: a $900 million marketing ploy to make you fork over money for something you don't really need.

So why would anyone feel compelled to buy Vista in the first place? To be fair, let's take a look at some of the features that Microsoft says make Vista a worthwhile purchase. First there is Aero, the user interface. While it is, admittedly, slick eye candy, it is certainly is not anything new in consumer computing: Aqua for Apple's OSX and Beryl and Compiz for Linux all have more features and look better since they have had more time to mature. Second, there is the Instant Search feature which allows for quickly searching all the files on your computer. Again, OSX's Spotlight and Linux's Beagle beat Microsoft to the punch (not to mention you'd be just as well off downloading the free Google Desktop Search application for XP). Even after looking through Microsoft's "100 reasons why everyone's so speechless" promotional site, I'm still scratching my head-why would anyone pay money for Vista when other operating systems' features are superior and it doesn't offer anything compelling enough to "upgrade" from Windows XP?

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