If you are involved, or at all interested, in computing then no doubt you have heard of Windows Vista. Microsoft’s latest Operating System has received nothing but criticism since its retail release back in January 2007. Users of Vista seem to constantly be complaining about slow performance, system crashes and most of all, incompatibility issues with various hardware and software. 

Huge companies such as Dell seem to be leaning more towards Windows XP still, as not so long back they decided to scrap the idea of selling their machines with Vista only and giving customers the optional choice to have Windows XP installed. Even with the cut off date for retail and OEM versions of Windows XP approaching fast (30th June 2008), Dell are still supplying XP with their machines in the form of a ‘Downgrade’ CD which will enable users to install XP past Microsoft’s sell by date. With reports of Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) causing more problems than it resolved the future of Vista seems very bleak indeed!

So with all this in mind, is it time for you to bite the bullet and upgrade to Vista? If you’d have asked me this question a few weeks back I’d have just laughed in your face (and maybe slapped you with a wet fish). That was until I actually had time to play around with it fully and dig up a few articles on how to properly configure Vista so you receive a smooth, problem free experience. One article I found particularly interesting was this posted on ZDNet written by Ed Bott

Ok so you still need a good enough spec machine to run Vista. But if you have a ‘Vista Compatible’ machine (and if you’re unsure of this then you can download this from Microsoft’s Website. The Vista Upgrade Advisor) and you have Vista correctly configured as described in the provided article, then your Vista experience should be a good one.