Windows XP or Windows Vista?
Recently Microsoft announced the release of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. They also released Service Pack 1 for Vista. 
Seems strange to be updating the old Windows while releasing fixups for the new one, but there is more.
Microsoft was also planning on dropping support for WinXP in the near future, yet they have now said they will support it till 2013. There’s also talk that a new version of Windows is coming next year – not an upgrade of Vista but an entirely new version.
For a humorous look at the Vista versus WinXP situation, take a look at Coding Sanity
But what is it all about?
Windows XP was released way back in 2001. It is tried and trusted, patched and updated, and many companies have it as their standard. WinXP runs on hardware that compares to current computers like a biplane compares to a Concord.
Windows Vista was released last year and it seems may not have been the success Microsoft hoped for, given they are already talking replacement. It requires a major investment in hardware – the stated configuration is a fairly major under-quote and memory, along with other components need to be top-of-the-line to run it at a decent speed.
As mentioned in the article above, there are major annoyances in the new system, in how it behaves and how it runs.
Mr JM thinks the sales of Vista are inflated – it comes pre-installed on new computers but companies are down-grading to WinXP as fast as the new machines come in. If he’s right, it would explain why Microsoft has a complete new version on the way.
I think it might be wise to wait a while before joining in the latest round of the Wintel game. (described in The Personal Computing Story. Do you have a real reason to upgrade to Vista? If it is only to keep up or because it’s new, it may be a smarter move to save your money for now and wait to see what is coming along.
Leave a Reply