Vista Home Premium: Worth updating? (MS Windows Vista Home Premium)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	MS Windows Vista Home Premium
Date:	17/01/08 (225 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice interface

Disadvantages: Not a huge step forward from XP

I had no real need to upgrade to Vista, being quite satisfied with what XP was offering, but when I bought a new PC near the end of 2007, it seemed that the sensible thing to do would be to upgrade to Vista.

When booting up the PC for the first time, I rattled through the set up process fairly quickly and within fifteen minutes or so, was logged in to my account and ready to go. [I've set a few Vista systems for family members and it seems to be reasonable straightforward for all, irrespective of computer literacy.]

My first course of action was to get online. I had done a little planning ahead and had some software burned to a CD to get me up and running including AVG Antivirus, Adobe Acrobat Reader and the drivers for my wireless networking device. These were installed first and within minutes my new PC was ready to connect to the internet. I did, however, get a message telling me that my Netgear Wireless Adapter was incompatible with Windows Vista. This was a concern, but as I was connected to the internet through my router using the adapter, I decided to worry about that later. Now, after using the PC for just over four weeks, I've yet to have any issues with the Netgear Adapter. That's confusing, but not really an issue and I've not had it happen with any other hardware.

So far, with only one exception, all the software I've installed has run perfectly. I did go to the respective websites and download the very latest versions, though. The only program to have suffered so far is the software for my TV card, but more on this later. I still have a few pieces of hardware to connect that could potentially cause problems (webcam, mp3 player and three year old digital camera), but I've yet to see any issues regarding these items on the internet.

The Aero interface, which some people are extremely excited about, is nice and easy on the eye and it can be very subtle. Windows open fluidly from the taskbar (and fade when closed) and window frames have a nice semi-transparency effect that's not immediately obvious. More obviously, if you hover your mouse pointer over an item in the taskbar, you get a little real-time thumbnail representation of the program. If that program is a TV viewer or DVD player, for example, then you'll get moving picture of what its showing. My PC can handle the hit in performance that all this eye candy requires, so I've left it on, but I really doubt I'd miss it if it were turned off.

Unlike previous transitions between Microsoft operating systems, Vista does have a lot of tweaks, most under the bonnet. Using the Explorer windows to browse the contents of your hard drive(s) is just slightly different to other versions to stop it from being intuitive, but it's still usable, albeit with a small learning curve and your personal space seems to be slightly better organised with various folders for photos, music etc.

My first impressions of Vista were that all the naysayers were over-reacting in typical anti-Microsoft style. I mean, sure, a lot of the improvements are not immediately obvious (even now, four weeks later), but it was doing what I required of it.

There are some aspects that are a huge pain in the arse, though.

The User Account Control (UAC) on the Home Premium version is unwieldy, cumbersome and for me, as someone that considers themselves to know what they're doing, unusable. It's a security setting designed to stop malware (malicious software) from running on your PC.

For example, my old Nebula Electronics TV Card (the only piece of hardware I installed from my old PC) doesn't yet have Vista drivers or Vista-only software. The XP drivers and software work fine with a little Vista tweaking, but every time Vista starts the DigiTV software (that's used to view the TV signal), I get popups asking for permission to run the program.

When booting the PC, DigiTV wants to start. UAC asks if it can run the program. I click "yes". DigiTV doesn't run. Instead, I get a message that says "Windows has stopped some programs from running at start up". Hang on. Didn't I just tell Windows to run the bloody thing? Sure enough, checking the icon in the tray, DigiTV is listed. When I click on that to get the program to run, I'm given the run around again with yet more confirmation popups until Windows decides that DigiTV can run.

This is taking the mickey somewhat. Vista should either learn what programs you use regularly and let them process without bothering you, the user, or there should be a 'whitelist' capability where you can manually add programs to a list that you know are safe so UAC won't bother you about them. As it stands, it just seems to me that Microsoft assumes that each and every one of its Vista Home Premium users is dumb or a security risk... or both. I believe UAC is customisable on more expensive versions of Vista, but that's disgraceful in my opinion. Charging extra to make a feature LESS annoying than it should be is robbery.

Despite having 2GB of RAM in the PC, I'm also seeing a huge amount of hard disk access compared to my old XP system. This doesn't appear to slow down the system in any way, but it also seems unnecessary as it kicks in when I'm not doing much.

I can't see any great reasons to upgrade from another operating system (but especially Windows XP) to Vista Home Premium. Admittedly, most of the improvements are under the bonnet of the software and unlike the updated games, for example, aren't immediately apparent, so the benefits aren't as noticeable.

I suppose, if you're buying a new PC, you might as well get the upgrade (if you're given the choice) and if you have a powerful enough PC and you want to play the latest games and get the best out of them (Halo 2 and Crysis, for example), then you'll have to upgrade to some kind of Vista to get the DirectX 10 which will be required for more and more games as time goes on. If you're moving from one an older PC to a newer PC, it's worth considering what hardware you'll be using on the new PC as drivers seem to be an issue.

It does seem to me to be a step forward from Windows XP, but really not a very big one and if you have no urgent need to upgrade, then don't. The major negative point is the UAC which I think will be annoying to all users, but the more you're aware of security and have your PC protected with anti-virus, firewalls etc. (i.e. more technical, experienced users), the more UAC will annoy and frustrate you.

So, taking a prompt from the UAC in Vista:

"Are you sure you want this software to run?"

Summary: Meh.

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