Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

Author's product rating:   

Instructions / Help	Satisfactory
Ease of use	Very easy
Ease of Installation	Poor - time consuming and not very logical
Reliability	Good
Value For Money	Poor

Advantages:	Excellent new interface, powerful graphics support
Disadvantages:	Needs a powerful PC and compatibility for existing software

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Microsoft Windows Vista

As you may be aware Microsoft have recently launched a new version of its Windows Operating System (OS) under the name Windows Vista. If you're buying a new PC chances are you'll receive one with Vista loaded, if you bought a PC in the last two or three months you are probably entitled to a free upgrade (from the PC supplier, not Microsoft). Anyone who bought a half decent machine in the last 12 - 15 months will need to seriously consider upgrading but if your PC is older then the decision to upgrade will be a lot trickier due to the heavy demands it will make on the various components.

Vista will come in five flavours; Home, Home Premium; Business; Enterprise and Ultimate. The version you choose will depend on your budget, the type of PC you have and how much you want the whistles and bells that Vista will offer.
The business version is a slimmed down option that offers the key elements of Vista without the associated minor applications but with more networking features. Enterprise is aimed at the corporate market for networked roll outs. The three domestic versions are the ones that will be of most interest to users.

The entry level Home version is aimed at those on the tightest of budgets or those with PC's that just scrape the minimum spec. You'll get the basic OS with its improved security and updated look and feel but that's pretty much it. You won't get the Aero interface or any of the additional software such as media centre, DVD writer or any new games. Given the price of this you are probably better off with your well bedded in XP version and a decent security package.

The Home Premium version will be the one most people will want to get. With this version you get all the fun bits of Vista like Aero and Flip 3D and will provide a distinctly different user experience above and beyond XP.

The Ultimate version contains all the functionality of the Home and Business versions and is probably aimed at those who like to show off.

Reams of specs can be off-putting in a review but in this case they are a necessary component and they will be listed at the end, along with the various upgrade paths that will need to be followed.

This review will be based around the Home Premium version.

Upgrading~
If you're buying a new PC with Windows Vista pre-installed you can skim through this section but if you're due a free upgrade or looking to buy a retail version you might find this bit helpful.

According to Microsoft, upgrading from XP to Vista should be a simple, pain free experience that any user should be able to accomplish. This has not been my experience. Given the number of Vista versions available, and the number of XP versions from which to upgrade from there are many upgrade you paths to follow depending on your choices. A full upgrade matrix is available on the Microsoft website but for now I'll concentrate on the domestic versions.
There are two ways to install a new version of Windows: via an upgrade where you run the installation with your existing OS running, or via a clean install where you reformat your hard drive before installing from start up. The upgrade path allows you to retain all your data, settings and user accounts (as well as all the clutter and malware) and is the easiest way forward. The clean install will cause you to lose all your data etc and you will need to reinstall any software and drivers afterwards. It does allow you to start from a clean slate and should allow the installation to complete without conflicts arising. If you need to do a clean install it is vital that you back up all your data but also make sure you have all the software, drivers, product keys and passwords available as well once the new OS is up and running.

If you have XP Home edition you should be able to upgrade to all versions of Vista.
If you have XP Professional you will be able to upgrade to Vista Business and Ultimate but Home and Home Premium will require a clean install. Professional x64 and Windows 2000 will require a clean install to all versions.
If you have XP Media Centre Edition you will be able to upgrade to Home Premium and Ultimate but Home and Business editions will require a clean install.

There is no upgrade option for operating systems older than Win 2000 so if you're running Win 98, firstly; shame on you and secondly it's unlikely your machine would be able to run Vista anyway.

This information is available on the Microsoft website and if you're contemplating upgrading you should spend some time there familiarising yourself with any issues.

My PC was running XP Media Centre and I tried to install a copy of Vista Business supplied direct from Microsoft. Not being aware of the upgrade rules above I attempted to install it with XP running, not surprisingly this failed but not before the set up routines had made some changes to my PC. Although XP was reset the PC was convinced I was still running an install and refused to boot smoothly, for some reason it would also not let me do a clean install and stopped me reformatting the hard drive. To get around this I installed an old version of XP Professional over the Media Centre edition, this allowed me to reformat the hard drive and then perform a clean install from the Home Premium version my PC vendor had now supplied me. From this point Vista did load smoothly and the installation was indeed straightforward and pain free.
Now you may not be overly interested in my personal travails but if you are contemplating an upgrade you need to be aware that it might not be as easy as you think and you must BACK UP EVERYTHING.

Set Up~
For anyone who has set up an XP machine the set up for Vista will be quite familiar. On first running you will be invited to create your user accounts and select your Vista themes. Vista will also review your machine to see what it can cope with and configure itself accordingly. If necessary it will tell you which components are holding your machine back and would need replacing to achieve all the benefits of Vista.

In Use~
Aero~
In much the same way that XP had a very different look to Win 98 so Vista is dramatically different to XP. Having lived for so long with XP's large, cartoon like, graphics Vista appears very clean and bright. Icons and logos are incredibly detailed and colour rich, every line and piece of text are much sharper and the overall effect is striking. And the Start button is now round.
Aero gives controls and windows a glassy, light reflecting look but the visual changes go far beyond the cosmetic. You also now have transparent windows where you can see the window beneath the one you have open. With the choice of colour themes, smoother screen transition and sophisticated animations Microsoft have claimed to make PC use easier on the eyes and by softening the areas around the window you have active it does make focussing easier.
Where Vista is going to hammer your PC is in its live preview and Flip 3D technologies. The live preview will show a minimised image of a window when you hover the curser over the taskbar, this is very useful when you have multiple files open in a single application, image files or spreadsheets for example. Flip 3D is the new way of switching between open applications, by stacking each window in the middle of the screen you can scroll through them like a rolodex using the mouse wheel until you get to the required window. What's clever about these previews is that they are dynamic and you can see any changes or progress as they happen without having the window active. It would be easy to dismiss much of the above as cosmetic gimmickry, and that isn't a million miles from the truth, but they are impressive and for the heavy PC user does make things better.

Explorer~
Vista comes with a new version of Windows Explorer, which is going to take some getting used to. It has a less cluttered look the in XP with fewer menus and toolbars to select from. In XP as you navigate around the folders the address bar will show your exact location back to the drive letter but with Vista you get a 'breadcrumb trail' showing the hierarchical folders you are in. An annoying omission in these early days of use is the lost Up button for retracing your steps but the breadcrumb trail allows you to expand each folder in a hierarchy and jump to that location which should be very useful when Vista eventually rolls out across office networks.
There are several panes you can choose to have open including ones for shortcuts to favourite folders, folder trees and a preview pane. The preview pane will currently work for Office documents only but will eventually include most file formats. There are a multitude of ways of arranging and listing files in a particular location (or indeed multiple locations), indeed far too many to list here, but this looks to be a pretty impressive way of working and could have a significant impact on how we search for and use stored data. This will have more of an impact on the complicated file structures you encounter in the office rather than on a home PC.
User folders have been changed as well, most obviously the 'My' prefix (My Document, My Pictures etc.) has been dropped which causes some early confusion; where they used to stand out now they merge into the list your own created folders. There are new folders for Contacts, Searches and Saved Games etc. which should be useful for keeping such information in single locations thus making backing up easier but will rely on software manufacturers adopting the format.

Sidebar and Gadgets~
If there is one aspect of Vista that smacks of gimmickry it is the Sidebar and gadgets feature. The Sidebar is a section of the Desktop where you can hold a number of mini applications or gadgets, on my 19" monitor it comes in about 2" from the right edge. Vista will provide a number of basic gadgets pre-installed; the most useful being an attractive analogue clock face, one for weather information and a live news feed. There is also a picture window that will scroll through images held in a specified file and a note pad. Over time many more gadgets are bound to become available from Microsoft and other suppliers. I'll keep an open mind on this bit for now but unless something really useful comes along I can see myself disabling this feature once the novelty wears off.

DirectX 10~
DirectX is the way that graphics, and in particular games, are handled on Microsoft platforms. DirectX 10 is the latest version of this and is the carrot for gamers and other high end users to upgrade to Vista as it will only be available to this latest OS. At the moment there is not much software to take advantage of this new standard but by the summer the new games and power graphics tools will start to come on-stream.

Security~
Throughout its long life XP has been constantly hammered for its security shortcomings and given the number of security updates Microsoft are continually releasing this would appear to be well founded. Not surprisingly Vista promotional material focuses heavily on its improved security and one of the key elements of this is the User Account Control (UAC). Every time a user tries to run a potentially harmful procedure Vista will lock up until the UAC dialog box is cleared. As pretty much everything you do on a PC is potentially harmful (saving files to the hard drive, running an application for example) this window appears a lot in the early days of use. The risk, as with most security risks, is user error and with so many warnings appearing and asking 'do you want to continue?' the temptation to click 'Yes' automatically increases.
The Windows Security Centre sees some changes as well with a reportedly beefed up Firewall. You also now get Windows Defender which offers protection against malware such as adware and spyware. It doesn't include a specific anti-virus programme which is strange but possibly due to anti-trust regulations.
It's early days but I haven't found any problems with security and after a couple of weeks of use haven't noticed any security updates from Microsoft coming through. I would expect to see some scare stories in the press in the coming months but so far everything seems quiet.

Additional Programmes~
Vista comes with the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Media Player. You also get a DVD maker and a couple of new games that should pass the time for a while. It also comes with an improved Movie Maker that includes HD functionality. MS Movie Maker is, I think, a fantastic piece of free software and remarkably unheralded. If you've got hours of home video lying around but never got around to doing anything with, Movie Maker is a great introduction to video editing. All the key elements and techniques are there and very quickly you'll be able to put together a respectable looking film. Once used you'll quickly want to move to a more sophisticated package but as an introduction it is very good.

Compatibility~
With XP having been around for so long the issue of compatibility has not been a problem for several years. However, Vista makes such fundamental changes to the way your PC operates that software suppliers will have to redesign new products and provide patches for their existing catalogue to ensure they all work with the new platform. Vista has been a long time coming so most big suppliers should have their patches ready now, or at least in the near future but if you rely on applications from smaller companies you may be left hanging while they get up to speed. A worry for me is that my Norton Security Suite is unacceptable to Vista and will not install, the Symantec website is unhelpful at present and I'm disappointed that such a company is not ready. Problems should ease in the coming months but in these early days you may find that you have applications or indeed some peripherals that won't work with Vista. If you run a small company you will find that as you replace your PC's over the next year or so you will be running and supporting two platforms which may be problematic on a network.

Upgrade or Not Upgrade~
If you are buying a new PC this isn't optional as you will only be supplied with Vista, but for those with PCs capable of running it it is a question you should be asking yourself.
Even via an upgrade this is expensive (pricing details are given below) and there are bound to be teething issues around support for software and hardware in the early days. At this stage there are precious few applications that will make full use of Vista's capabilities and you won't see the full benefits for several months at best. Additionally, for all its bad press XP is a good, well established platform that will continue to be supported by Microsoft for the foreseeable future (Service Pack 3 is scheduled to be released late this year). But the choice is out of your hands in many ways, eventually you will be using Vista, the only question is when.

Opinion~
In terms of look and feel Vista is streets ahead of XP. Much of the new functionality is useful and of benefit to the user and it is certainly refreshing to have a redesigned workspace after using XP's rather tired looking interface for so many years. It's hard for me to comment on value for money as I didn't pay for my copies but £220 is a lot to pay at this point. If your PC can handle it I think you should seriously consider moving to Vista, if your PC is borderline or you're planning to buy a new one in the next year or so I'd hold on to your XP installation for now.

Details~

Pricing:

Home: Retail £180, Upgrade £100
Home Premium: Retail £220, Upgrade £150
Business: Retail £290, Upgrade £190
Ultimate: Retail £370, Upgrade £250

Minimum Specs:

Home: CPU - 1GHz, RAM - 512MB, Hard Drive - 20GB, Graphics - support for DirectX 9 and 32MB graphics memory

Premium and above: CPU - 1GHz, RAM - 1GB, Hard Drive - 40GB, Graphics - support for DirectX 9 and a minimum of 128MB graphics memory.

Full details from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/default.mspx

Decl aration: I am a Microsoft Partner which entitles me to full Microsoft products under a demonstration licence. I am not a Microsoft employee or reseller.