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The time has almost come for Microsoft to officially release Windows Vista to consumers. On January 30th, consumers will be able to purchase a new computer pre-installed with one of the many Vista versions or as a standalone product to install on a self-built or already running computer. But the big question that everyone is talking about is, "Do you really need Vista?" That answer can be a little complicated, but this short and useful guide should help clear up any confusion.
The first question you should ask yourself is, am I buying a new computer or am I going to upgrade an existing computer to Windows Vista? If you are buying a new computer, then you do not really have to worry about it being compatible with Windows Vista because it will come pre-loaded with Vista. If you buy a new computer before January 30th, you will get a computer with Windows XP, but Microsoft will allow you to order a Windows Vista upgrade CD for free once it is released at the end of January. If you are planning on upgrading your current computer from Windows XP (if it runs anything older, you'll want to probably buy a new computer) to Windows Vista, there are a few things that you'll need to consider. First off is the current age of your computer, if it is anything older than around 2004, you'll probably want to either upgrade the internal components (such as CPU, RAM, video card) with more up-to-date equipment. If your computer is newer than 2004 and was a pretty high-end system at the time that you bought it, you can probably just buy the Windows Vista upgrade. However, you'll want to make sure your system meets or exceeds the system requirements for Vista. Microsoft's set of recommended system requirements are as follows...
However, in our opinion, these specs are a little light if you are planning on doing more advanced computer tasks, such as photo editing, playing video games, or running many programs at once. If you really want to make sure your system will run Vista and then all of your other programs without any slow downs, you'll want to make sure your system at lease has...
If you are planning on upgrading an existing computer to Vista, make sure that you really want to because you cannot rollback to Windows XP from a Vista upgrade like you could in previous versions. You also should download and run Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor, which will scan your system and tell you about any hardware/driver incompatibilities. Besides all of the above, you should also consider the cost of upgrading a computer to Vista. Another issue that is actually new to the decision of whether or not to upgrade to Vista is the many different versions of Windows Vista itself. There are four different versions of Vista that are available to consumers and each has its own constraints on whether or not it is upgradeable from a certain pervious version of Windows. The following chart is an exact duplicate of the chart located at Microsoft's Vista Upgrade page, which also has other valuable information about upgrading.
Lastly, we wanted to run through some of the things that we love and hate about Windows Vista. Things We Love...
Thinks We Hate...
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