bobov (imported) wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:25 am Microsoft is releasing the consumer versions of Windows Vista tomorrow, as well as the new Office 2007. What are you going to do?

Anyone thinking of upgrading their existing computer to Windows Vista should first run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. The scan will tell you whether or not your computer is a candidate for an upgrade. More than likely, you'll learn that your video card won't support the Aero interface, and that the amount of RAM you have is insufficient.

The Upgrade Advisor can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/produc ... visor.mspx

Huevon, is there any difference between "Mainstream Support" and "Extended Support"? Do you need to do anything to get either of these, or are they extended automatically?

Shortie, I've used the Vista Upgrade Advisor, and, just as you said, I was told I needed a new video card and more RAM for Aero. What would the ballpark cost be, including labor for a technician to install? Is it worth it?

Today, Microsoft is announcing the addition of an Extended Support phase for the Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition operating systems, providing consumers with an additional phase of support.

With the addition of Extended Support, the support life cycle for Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition will include a total of five years of Mainstream Support (until April 2009) and five years of Extended Support, matching the support policy provided for Windows XP Professional.

Bottom line: If you want to stick with Windows XP, you can choose to do so for more than seven additional years, with security updates available during that entire period.

from ZDnet magazine.H.And by that time you'll need a new computer anyway (or want one because of the dramatic increases in speed that will take place), so waiting seems an attractive option.

bobov (imported) wrote: Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:35 am Shortie, I've used the Vista Upgrade Advisor, and, just as you said, I was told I needed a new video card and more RAM for Aero. What would the ballpark cost be, including labor for a technician to install? Is it worth it?

Hi, Bobov,

Sorry I can't be all that specific in answering your question. Before somewhat realistic figures can be quoted, I'd have to know how much RAM you now have, plus the configuration of your motherboard. Most low-end computers are sold with only 256 MB of RAM, which means you'd have to add 768 MB to get up to speed. Another factor is the number of RAM slots that are in your machine. If there are two, and one is now empty, the cost would be significantly less than if you had to buy a single RAM stick of 1 GB.

An adequate video card can be found for around $50, but if you want to get more bells and whistles, you should plan on spending closer to $100 for the card.

As for labor, your best bet is to find a friend who has experience in installing expansion cards in a computer. It's a very-simple process, and as long as the installer is careful to ground him/herself during the operation, no damage will be done if normal attention to detail is paid. If you have to hire the work done, and you can take your computer to the shop, you'll probably be charged for a minimum of one hour of labor, at $50 - $100 per. I charge $85/hour in my shop, which is pretty much the average in this area. If the technician has to travel to your home, you'd have to add in extra costs.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

As far as being worth it, in my opinion it's not. You'd be spending valuable dollars to get an operating system that doesn't offer that much over WinXP. I think you'd be better off waiting until your computer becomes hopelessly outdated, then replace it with one that has the newest software already installed.

I think i'm going to stick with OSX hehehe

I would like to get Vista and all the neat features it has. But I think I would first like to wait at least a few months and see how others do with it, what their experience with Vista is like. It is too big and too expensive to just sink a bunch of money into it right off then find out afterword it has problems. I think it would be better to give it some time, let them iron out any problems it might have, then get it after that has been taken care of. It is too big and expensive for me to just go right out and buy it before it has had some real world testing.

one of the men at work has just upgraded to vista he had downloaded lots of mp3's and some films after installing everyhing worked ok then he went online to check for updates etc it checked all his downloaded mp3's and the several hundred it identified as not been his it deleted !, apart from that its verry good he is glad he backed his pc up before upgrading

Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You

Bruce Schneier 02.12.07, 6:00 AM ET

Link (http://www.forbes.com:80/2007/02/10/mic ... newsletter )

Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry.

And you don't get to refuse them.

The details are pretty geeky, but basically Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) has reworked a lot of the core operating system to add copy protection technology for new media formats like HD-DVD and Blu-ray disks. Certain high-quality output paths--audio and video--are reserved for protected peripheral devices. Sometimes output quality is artificially degraded; sometimes output is prevented entirely. And Vista continuously spends CPU time monitoring itself, trying to figure out if you're doing something that it thinks you shouldn't. If it does, it limits functionality and in extreme cases restarts just the video subsystem. We still don't know the exact details of all this, and how far-reaching it is, but it doesn't look good.

Microsoft put all those functionality-crippling features into Vista because it wants to own the entertainment industry. This isn't how Microsoft spins it, of course. It maintains that it has no choice, that it's Hollywood that is demanding DRM in Windows in order to allow "premium content"--meaning, new movies that are still earning revenue--onto your computer. If Microsoft didn't play along, it'd be relegated to second-class status as Hollywood pulled its support for the platform.

It's all complete nonsense. Microsoft could have easily told the entertainment industry that it was not going to deliberately cripple its operating system, take it or leave it. With 95% of the operating system market, where else would Hollywood go? Sure, Big Media has been pushing DRM, but recently some--Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) after their 2005 debacle and now EMI Group--are having second thoughts.

What the entertainment companies are finally realizing is that DRM just annoys their customers. Like every other DRM system

ever invented, Microsoft's won't keep the professional pirates from making copies of whatever they want. The DRM security in Vista was broken the day it was released. Sure, Microsoft will patch it, but the patched system will get broken as well. It's an arms race, and the defenders can't possibly win.

I believe that Microsoft knows this and also knows that it doesn't matter. This isn't about stopping pirates and the small percentage of people who download free movies from the Internet. This isn't even about Microsoft satisfying its Hollywood customers at the expense of those of us paying for the privilege of using Vista. This is about the overwhelming majority of honest users and who owns the distribution channels to them. And while it may have started as a partnership, in the end Microsoft is going to end up locking the movie companies into selling content in its proprietary formats.

We saw this trick before; Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) pulled it on the recording industry. First iTunes worked in partnership with the major record labels to distribute content, but soon Warner Music's CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. found that he wasn't able to dictate a pricing model to Steve Jobs. The same thing will happen here; after Vista is firmly entrenched in the marketplace, Sony's Howard Stringer won't be able to dictate pricing or terms to Bill Gates. This is a war for 21st-century movie distribution and, when the dust settles, Hollywood won't know what hit them.

To be fair, just last week Steve Jobs publicly came out against DRM for music. It's a reasonable business position, now that Apple controls the online music distribution market. But Jobs never mentioned movies, and he is the largest single shareholder in Disney. Talk is cheap. The real question is would he actually allow iTunes Music Store purchases to play on Microsoft or Sony players, or is this just a clever way of deflecting blame to the--already hated--music labels.

Microsoft is reaching for a much bigger prize than Apple: not just Hollywood, but also peripheral hardware vendors. Vista's DRM will require driver developers to comply with all kinds of rules and be certified; otherwise, they won't work. And Microsoft talks about expanding this to independent software vendors as well. It's another war for control of the computer market.

Unfortunately, we users are caught in the crossfire. We are not only stuck with DRM systems that interfere with our legitimate fair-use rights for the content we buy, we're stuck with DRM systems that interfere with all of our computer use--even the uses that have nothing to do with copyright.

I don't see the market righting this wrong, because Microsoft's monopoly position gives it much more power than we consumers can hope to have. It might not be as obvious as Microsoft using its operating system monopoly to kill Netscape and own the browser market, but it's really no different. Microsoft's entertainment market grab might further entrench its monopoly position, but it will cause serious damage to both the computer and entertainment industries. DRM is bad, both for consumers and for the entertainment industry: something the entertainment industry is just starting to realize, but Microsoft is still fighting. Some researchers think that this is the final straw that will drive Windows to the competition, but I think the courts are necessary.

In the meantime, the only advice I can offer you is to not upgrade to Vista. It will be hard. Microsoft's bundling deals with computer manufacturers mean that it will be increasingly hard not to get the new operating system with new computers. And Microsoft has some pretty deep pockets and can wait us all out if it wants to. Yes, some people will shift to Macintosh and some fewer number to Linux, but most of us are stuck on Windows. Still, if enough customers say no to Vista, the company might actually listen.

I was thinking about upgrading one of my computers to Vista, but everything I've read has convinced me not to. Everyone seems to be advising against Vista.

But what happens when Microsoft stops supporting XP? And what happens - as the article says - when you need to buy a new computer?