30 Days with Windows Vista
For me, that is 29 days and 23 1/2 hours too long...and that's being generous. :)

When trying to decide whether to upgrade from Windows XP or 2000 to Windows Vista, it is all too tempting for many people - myself included - to come into it with prejudices and presumptions, and the rumor mill is rife with what Vista can and cannot let you do. Many forum posters say that Vista is nothing but trouble - others say that everything works flawlessly. The differences are so stark that it often seems like two different operating systems are being discussed.

It’s also easy to associate Windows Vista with "Microsoft" the company. Microsoft has done more than perhaps any other software company to bring computing to the masses - and yes, that includes Apple. A great part of our culture was advanced - for good - by the development of Windows. It’s a family of operating systems that run on just about any hardware, making computing affordable for almost everyone. A computer in every home - much like Ford putting a model-T in every garage.

And like Ford, there are also some complaints about Microsoft leveraging its monopoly power to stifle innovation, which we’re all familiar with.

This is at best a wash, and the history of Microsoft, while it may impact individual purchasing choices, does not impact whether or not Windows Vista is an operating system of value. In short, Vista needs to be evaluated in a vacuum - or at least as close as we can get to one. The bottom line is, "does it work, and does it work well?" There's so much information and misinformation about Windows Vista - driver support, stability, DRM - which may be scaring people away from the OS. Conversely, there may be some information yet to be disclosed that could cause problems for users who are looking to upgrade. Clearly, it's time for an objective, in-depth look at what Windows Vista does and does not do.

To properly explore this, I once again formatted the hard drive of my home computer, Whakataruna, and Puget System's graciously provided Pugetina, and made the decision to use Windows Vista as my sole home operating system for 30 days.

This evaluation is a bit shorter and less detailed than the evaluation of Ubuntu Linux which we've recently completed, but that is partially because of the readership’s general familiarity with the OS. Linux was a completely different operating system, so going through it for 30 days was the equivalent of being dropped in a foreign country with a guidebook and friendly locals willing to help you get by - but in the end, you’re still having to learn a new language and the learning curve feels like a monolingual American being air-dropped in the middle of Toyko.

Moving from Windows XP to Windows Vista on the other hand, is more like being dropped in... Toronto. Most users are at least passably familiar with the standards of the XP interface, so there's no need to go into what hasn't changed from one version of Windows to the next. What will be more important is what has changed, and is it for the better?

Read all about it here, courtesy of hardocp.com

Eric