Vista OS—A Love-Hate Relationship

John Gyorki
March 25th, 2008.

I recently purchased a Hewlett Packard laptop computer to replace my 1.5 year-old Apple MacPro ($2500.00) after it developed an annoying screen flicker, which according to experts, would have cost about $800.00 to $1200.00 to repair. But, that’s another story.

My new HP Pavilion dv9000, an “Entertainment PC,” is outfitted with the Home Premium version of the Vista operating system and Office 2007. Now I have an opportunity to experience Vista’s really cool and not so cool features. Because of the many negative reports I heard about Vista when it first appeared, I was wondering if I should have opted for the XP operating system instead. But, I decided I can’t impede progress, and eventually, most of us will be using Vista and Office 2007, anyway.

Unfortunately, the computer comes with no manuals, so I decided to probe around the various onboard application programs to see what I could learn before visiting Border’s Books or Amazon.com. First, Office 2007 apparently comes in a variety of versions. Mine came withWord, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. After firing it up, I was immediately surprised byWord’s new toolbars. The familiar dropdown boxes of yesteryear are replaced with a wide ribbon across the top of the screen. It took some getting used to, but after a couple of days and a little customization, I fully embraced it. And I soon discovered that customization is the key to the whole Vista OS software.We are allowed to change many more attributes to suit our specific ways of working than I can count in an hour. But, even after all of this experimenting, I did have to buy several textbooks on Vista OS, Office 2007, andWord 2007 to really get up to speed.

The big difference between Vista OS and XP, I think, is the extent to which Microsoft incorporated safeguards to protect Vista OS from what is called “malware” attacks. Although Service Pack 2 for XP considerably helped diminish much vulnerability, even more was accomplished in Vista. It appears that many additional steps are needed to install application software, connect to the Internet, set up e-mail, and generally program the computer to fit your working style, but I suspect the problems I encountered are related to the safeguards. Also, one book I read claims that Microsoft has enforced more rigid rules for third party software/peripheral developers to follow, so your computer is all that less open to criminal attacks. In the spirit of security, I highly recommend reading “Windows Vista Security,” by Roger A. Grimes and Jesper M. Johansson, aWiley Publication, and get a thorough grounding on the subject.

I think those who have a negative attitude about Vista OS did not take the time to learn enough about the system’s details before deciding not to purchase it or experiment with its options. Although my personal, home computer system experience was acceptable, I think Microsoft will have a much tougher time selling Vista to large corporations— enterprise systems. I say this because a software security expert I talked to claims Vista OS is not compatible with many other megabuck-application software systems currently in use. Many large firms and their system administrators do not have the time or money to convert to Vista just because it is new and contains more safeguards.

Tell us about your experience with the Vista OS and Office 2007. If you have no experience with it “try it, you’ll like it.”