Clarifying My Stand on Vista

I wanted to clarify my stance on Vista. I know I got excited last night, because it hurts me to see so much unjustified bashing of Vista when I and many others have had a very good experience with it. However, I wanted to make some things clear.

I don't recommend you to upgrade your present machine from XP to Vista. Even though I really like Vista, and it worked well on an older machine I had, installing Vista on older hardware can be problematic. Please, don't go and think you have to upgrade to Vista. You don't have to.

However, if you want to live dangerously and try upgrading to Vista, I highly recommend that you first download and run the Vista Upgrade advisor. It analyses your present machine and tells you what will and what won't work in Vista. You can download it at this location.

The best experience is to buy a new PC with Vista already installed. If you do, I suggest getting a machine with a Intel Core 2 chip, at least 2 GB of RAM, and a dedicated graphics card. Don't be confused by all the different versions of Vista; get the Home Premium edition. If you want to use older devices with your new computer, please check out the Vista Compatibility Center or the manufacturer's web site to see if there are Vista drivers available for your older devices. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my several-year-old HP PSC 2110 printer was supported out-of-the-box, I didn't need to download any drivers.

I hope I didn't give you the wrong impression that Vista was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It is not perfect, but it is not an embarassment or the worst version of Windows ever, as some in the press might lead you to believe. Don't be afraid of getting a new PC with Vista, just do a little bit of homework by checking out the Vista Compatibility Center to see if your older devices work ok.