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Those of you that have followed my posts know that one of the chief reasons for my switching over to Mac is how much I abhor the direction that Microsoft has taken with Vista.
Now there's another reason to not upgrade to Vista - "upgrade" versions will only install over top of an existing Windows installation. That's right - no clean installs if you purchase an "upgrade" version of Windows Vista.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070128-8717.html
In years past, if you had a so-called "upgrade" version of Windows XP, you could still easily do a clean install just by inserting your 98/Me CD and having setup verify that it was a valid copy. Now with Vista there must be an existing install on the disk.
This is also very bad news indeed for those of us who might have wanted to run Vista in Parallels or via Bootcamp. We'll now be forced into a minimum $240 purchase for the retail full version of Home Basic Edition. If you want any of the premium features or the business-savvy version (read: able to work in a corporate, AD-based environment), you'll need to spend more like $400.
Yes, you read that right - $400 just for the operating system, bugs and all.
So, what does $240 buy you that XP doesn't already provide? Let's see:
1. A gussied up user interface reminiscent of what OS X has been providing for years.
2. Inherent DRM protections to ensure that you comply with whatever the RIAA and MPAA want to shove down your throats at any given time.
3. DirectX 10 which Microsoft refuses to release for older versions of Windows, including XP which isn't even close to the end of it's scheduled support end-of-life.
That's about it - unless you count some of the 'new' features like Desktop search which Google has been doing on XP for ages now, free of charge.
For awhile now, I've been thinking that I might upgrade my Windows boxes to Vista after the release of SP1, despite my objections. Well, that about cinches it for me. I have 2 Wintel machines and have no intention of lining Microsoft's pockets with $500 for this miserable excuse for an operating system.
I'm all Mac from here on out....
Now there's another reason to not upgrade to Vista - "upgrade" versions will only install over top of an existing Windows installation. That's right - no clean installs if you purchase an "upgrade" version of Windows Vista.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070128-8717.html
In years past, if you had a so-called "upgrade" version of Windows XP, you could still easily do a clean install just by inserting your 98/Me CD and having setup verify that it was a valid copy. Now with Vista there must be an existing install on the disk.
This is also very bad news indeed for those of us who might have wanted to run Vista in Parallels or via Bootcamp. We'll now be forced into a minimum $240 purchase for the retail full version of Home Basic Edition. If you want any of the premium features or the business-savvy version (read: able to work in a corporate, AD-based environment), you'll need to spend more like $400.
Yes, you read that right - $400 just for the operating system, bugs and all.
So, what does $240 buy you that XP doesn't already provide? Let's see:
1. A gussied up user interface reminiscent of what OS X has been providing for years.
2. Inherent DRM protections to ensure that you comply with whatever the RIAA and MPAA want to shove down your throats at any given time.
3. DirectX 10 which Microsoft refuses to release for older versions of Windows, including XP which isn't even close to the end of it's scheduled support end-of-life.
That's about it - unless you count some of the 'new' features like Desktop search which Google has been doing on XP for ages now, free of charge.
For awhile now, I've been thinking that I might upgrade my Windows boxes to Vista after the release of SP1, despite my objections. Well, that about cinches it for me. I have 2 Wintel machines and have no intention of lining Microsoft's pockets with $500 for this miserable excuse for an operating system.
I'm all Mac from here on out....