Vista Review

[photopress:toshiba_laptop.jpg,thumb,pp_image] Here’s a pic of the Toshiba laptop that I bought. I had my choice of any laptop, and for me really i boiled down to either Gateway, Toshiba, or Lenovo (IBM). HP or Compaq were not considered because I consider them “department store” pc’s. Every laptop has it’s garbage default software installed, but for some reason HP and Compaq have not only the worst software, but just gobs and gobs of it stinking up the hard drive. Maybe it’s because they sell HP’s at Wal-Mart now and they’re catering to the lowest common denominator. The Lenovo laptops are known for their extreme durability, but I just hate that little mouse “finger” in the middle of the keyboard. The IBM laptops were a little overpriced and didn’t seem to have enough RAM for me anyway. Toshiba has always been known for reliable laptops - and the Satellite is a widely recognized brand. However, what sealed the deal for me was the extra large default 1440 x 900 17″ display, the multimedia built in harmon kardon speakers, and especially the 2GB of RAM.

So in the last post I talked about how when I first took the Toshiba notebook out of the box it seemed to take forever the first time for it to load. The first time boot up is always a pain. This laptop was loaded with Windows Vista “Premium”. I didn’t know much about the different versions of Vista, and I didn’t have a choice for what version to get when I bought the laptop. It just came with Premium. So after bootup my son says to check out the “moving background” that come with Vista. I went to the desktop, right-clicked “properties” and “Personalize” and started checking out the default Windows background. There were quite a few, and even some widescreen backgrounds - but not a single moving one. Seemed kinda like a novelty, but I wanted to check one out.

It occured to me that the moving backgrounds didn’t come with my version of Windows Vista. In Windows Vista - when it boots (until you disable it) you are presented with the “Welcome Center”:

[photopress:welcome_center.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

The Welcome Center is a combination of information - like system information, “Get Started with Windows”, and “Offers from (vendor)”. One of the first getting started items is “Windows Anytime Upgrade”.

[photopress:vista_anytime_upgrade.jpg,thumb,pp_image] Microsoft has seemed to work really hard with this version of Windows - to constantly annoy you with “opportunities” to upgrade to a better version of Vista (for more money). Wen you click to compare versions of Vista the next screen basically tries to show “the version of Vista you have has nothing, but if you upgrade you can have everything”.

[photopress:vista_upgrade_comparison.jpg,thumb,pp_image] What kinds of things wold I have if only I would upgrade to Vista Ultimate from Premium? Well…

• Windows Ultimate Extras: What is this? Well, it says “stay up to date and get valuable tips, services, and software through Window Ultimate Extras - available exclusively to customers with Windows Vista Ultimate”. WTF?? Talk about marketing BS…this I could care less about
• Install and use any language with the Multi-Lingual Interface (MUI): Again - a great big “so what”…
• Get the best data protection with Windows Bitlocker Drive Encryption: OK, this maybe sounds good - but it requires both a USB pen drive and a TPM 1.2 chip to be installed in your computer. I don’t if I have that or not.
• Protect confidential files with Encrypting File System (EFS): this also seems like a pretty cool feature, but isn’t this redundant? If my entire drive is encrypted (previous) why would I need it at the file level? Anyway - I can get a program online for as little as $39 to do both of these. These are cool features to have in the OS, but not enough to make my upgrade to Ultimate.
• Restore lost or edited files with Windows: so I guess this makes real time copies of your work - and to me that just spells “unneccessary temp files all over the place”. I guess this would be a feature for people too stupid to know to do this on their own…oh wait - this is a feature for the “clueless”……I get it now!
• Restore your entire computer with Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore: Also a really cool feature - but I think it should be included in every version of Vista. Obviously Microsoft wants to include it only in the “Ultimate” version of Vista to make you think that you are at risk without it - and they’re betting that many people with pony up the extra upgrade $$ to get it. Again - backup software is pretty cheap whether you get it on the web or at Staples or CompUSA. It also comes free with just about every external hard drive that is sold
• Access your computer from anywhere using Remote Destop: OK - this one really pisses me off. It was a default feature of Windows XP, and now it’s only available in the Ultimate version of Vista?? They are really pushing their (upgrade) luck now. Seems like there were a lot of people that used this feature with either their ISP or hardware manufacturer when needing online help. It was a way to grant remote access to your PC to allow someone to help you by seeing your pc from their end (and controlling it). In my opinion - this screws a lot of everyday users from doing this (without upgrading). Maybe that’s what they are betting on.
• Small business resources: again - I could care less about this
• Windows Fax and Scan: These are features that for years were available in 3rd party software whether the default standard WinFax Pro or the manufacturer software that came with your scanner install. Now these are available in Windows - but only if you upgrade to the “Ultimate” version of Vista. Again not impressed. These should be standard parts of every version of Windows Vista. If Microsoft is going to try and compete with Linux you wouldn’t know it - because these are (and have been) part of the default versions of Ubuntu for some time.
• Take files with you using offline files and folders: wasn’t this a feature of XP too? OK, maybe I remember this feature as part of IE. But if not the browser, where else would you be taking folders offline? This is such a simple feature, I can’t believe you have to upgrade to Ultimate to get this.
• Securely connect to company networks with Domain Join: You know, I don’t get this one at all. I used VPN and Remote Desktop to connect to my company PC with Windows 2000 and Windows XP for years with no problem. Are they saying they know have VPN compatible connections available? Either way - this is tnot a selling point for me to upgrade to Ultimate at all.
• Manage users and computers with Group Policy: This is possibly the first feature that I’ve seen that would be “fair” to put into an Ultimate upgrade, and something that the average person would not need. The ability to setup my computer with multiple accounts AND being able to have find grained control over what they do on my computer (and control the other computers on the network) is actually something worth upgrading for
• Host your own web site with Microsoft Server 2003 IIS 7.0: I have mixed feelings about this. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have to upgrade to the Ultimate version of Windows Vista to get to use the web server. Don’t they know that Apache is free? I wonder if they did something in Vista to disallow the use of open source web servers somehow. Rediculous….
• Run UNIX based applications on Windows: OK, I’m sorry - I was doing this in Windows 2000 by downloading a free patch from MS. Maybe a good reason to upgrade I guess, but doesn’t MS realize that you can download Cygwin for Windows for free and do this anyway?
• Support for high end hardware: Also one of the only valid reasons to upgrade - the ability to run a computer with 2 processors or up to 128GB of memory.

I’m not going to talk about the differences between Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium since my laptop was loaded with Premium. I talk about that another day. Out of all the “features” I would get listed above - as I stated I only saw one or two worth paying the price to upgrade. Now - after reading all the propaganda - how much does it actually cost in $$ to upgrade?? If I click the upgrade button, it opens a web browser and you have to choose who to purchase the upgrade through. I decided to see how much it would be through Amazon to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows Vista Home Ultimate…for some reason Amazon didn’t have any price listed on the upgrade page (or ability to check how much it was). It just showed info about the upgrade and reasons to upgrade. I went back and brought up the price to upgrade through Best Buy…and the grand total to upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate is $159.00.

Is it worth it?? Well, the only thing I didn’t mention that you would receive (that I forgot about) was the Texas Hold-Em Poker game (which is supposed to be excellent). Also - not something I would pay $159 to get. I absolutely do not think that Vista Ultimate is worth the upgrade price at all. And I really feel like this is double dipping for MS. They already got some of my money when I purchased the laptop because a portion of the price of the system was the cost of my Windows Vista license. I feel now like they gave me a substandard version of Windows for normal price, and they are going to try and double charge me after I have the laptop in my hands for the upgrade. We’ll see how many times in the future my laptop will try and get me to do the upgrade. So far - it just puts a real dirty taste in my mouth.

This post is from vistareview.info where you can get real posts from a new Windows Vista user and decide for yourself whether it’s for you.bb