CYBER NOTES December, 2006 by Dave Benore
Yee gods!—another operating system?
That’s right, another operating system is coming. Windows XP, which most of us know (and love?), is going to be replaced with a new operating system. (An operating system is software that connects all of our hardware and other software into a system that does what it is told.) It has been about five years since Microsoft came out with Windows XP in 2001--a long time in computer land.
Between 1994 and 2001, Microsoft brought out Windows 95, 98, 2000, and ME—all Windows operating systems. Windows 2000 was meant for business use while Windows XP has a Home Edition and a Professional Edition. Windows XP suffered much from hacker attacks.
Now a new operating system is coming from Microsoft named “Vista”, supposedly to start selling home editions early next year.
New computers purchased later next year should have Vista rather than XP loaded on them. People who are looking for a new computer now must wonder about waiting for Vista. Here are some thoughts:
Microsoft has been notorious for being late on delivering new operating systems. If you wait for Vista you might have to wait many months. No one really knows. If you buy now you will have XP for the operating system. XP will stay in use for many years yet. It is a good system, fundamentally.
You can also now buy a computer that is supposed to be “Vista ready”. What does that mean? It means that it will have a very big hard drive (more than 100 gigabytes) and at least one gigabyte of RAM. It will have a very fast microprocessor chip—could be a “dual core” chip. It will still have Windows XP on it. You could upgrade to Vista after it comes out. Upgrade versions of Vista probably will be cheaper than “full” versions. But there is one caveat: Upgrade versions of operating systems do not have a good reliability track record compared to “full” versions.
If you have a working system right now, but want a newer system, I would wait for Vista to come out on new computers, and then get one. If you can’t wait, go ahead and buy one with XP on it. It will work fine for years. I would wait until after Christmas though, if you want to save money. Expect prices on XP computers to drop after the holidays.
