Worth upgrading to vista yet?

[pauldarkside]

Workbench ftw tbqfh!

Workbench with DOpus Magellan as shell replacement FTW indeed

Otherwise, Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit has been playing just fine here. Just waiting on PP1 for WHS now. I haven't had to dual boot to XP since at least 6 months ago.

[Paranoid2000]

The questions that any upgrader should be asking is:

1. what needs improving in my existing setup?
2. does Vista offer anything relevant to (a)?
3. can I get (a) by using other software at less cost?

Most "pro-Vista" posts seem to be along the lines of "I like Aero/Sidebar" (fair enough, but WindowBlinds/Konfabulator offer similar features with less CPU overheads) or "It doesn't crash" (2000/XP shouldn't do either - if it does regularly, then a system cleanup or at worst a re-install should fix any problems at less cost).

Vista only offers 2 features that aren't (yet) available through third party software that I can see (the Ultimate version adds a third) so anyone happy to shell out £100+ more for any other reason, without considering the alternatives, is either overly generous with money or overly forgiving of Microsoft.

[dangel]

Feature count is an interesting one - and much more difficult to quantify than you think. I could argue Win2k had pretty much all the XP does by the same logic.

You can, of course, install Vista without a key and use it for a few days to try it - isn't it strange that MS doesn't just allow people to use this feature to try before they buy?

Just like XP, the longer you live with Vista that harder it is to flip back to the older OS IMHO. Just a thought, i'm not shunting people one way or another - it's down to the individual to make a choice - all i'm saying is it'd be nice for us all if that was an informed one.

[Splash]

I guess it really rather depends - anyone who's shelling out for a new license of a Windows OS (ie for a new build if you don't have a retail copy) needs to really think about whether it's worth investing all that hard-earned on an OS that will be EOL a lot sooner than the other. And anyone who buys into XP64 over Vista64 needs to be shot, frankly.

As has been said though - assess your situation: if you're just looking for a shiny new OS to upgrade your 3 year old XP machine you're probably not going to have much fun with Vista. If you need to use legacy software your mileage may vary on both flavours (XP and Vista) but if you're building a new machine and have decided on Windows, and you don't have a copy with a transferrable license of XP then I *really* can't understand why you would shell out the readies for XP.

[Oldjim]

Just came across this thread.
I had exactly the same decision on my new build and I went for Vista 64 bit - two basic reasons
I wanted DX10 for gaming
I wanted to run with 4GB RAM
I could have transferred my XP 32 bit licence from my old PC but decided to keep it as a backup and also retain the possibility of going dual boot in the future when that PC was dismantled for parts.