achine that you own, or purchasing one with it pre-installed, is costly, detrimental to your freedoms and, most importantly, completely unnecessary. If you're thinking about getting Vista, I have three (loud) words for you:

DON'T DO IT!

Vista is one expensive piece of software. If you buy it straight off the shelf, it will set you back one hundred to four hundred dollars, depending on which version you get and if you are "upgrading" from a previous version of Windows. You might also pay this price when buying a new PC if Vista comes with it. Also, Vista consumes a huge amount of hardware resources, so the old processor and memory that you were running Windows 2000 on just might not cut it with Vista. Dell recommends that users have 2GB of memory while some, such as consultant David Short of IBM, think that twice that amount (4GB) is Vista's "sweet spot." The bottom line is any way you look at it, Vista will have you forking over a sizable chunk of cash.

Expense alone is no reason to shun any product, provided it yields value commensurate with its cost. But Vista has virtually no features that would warrant its cost. This is the grand irony of Vista: it provides essentially no value above and beyond its predecessor, Windows XP. XP, despite its flaws, can probably achieve all of the things a typical user needs a computer to do reasonably well: instant message, download files, browse the Internet, play video games, etc. In this sense, the push to "upgrade" to Vista is exposed for what it really is: a $900 million marketing ploy to make you fork over money for something you don't really need.

So why would anyone feel compelled to buy Vista in the first place? To be fair, let's take a look at some of the features that Microsoft says make Vista a worthwhile purchase. First there is Aero, the user interface. While it is, admittedly, slick eye candy, it is certainly is not anything new in consumer computing: Aqua for Apple's OSX and Beryl and Compiz for Linux all have more features and look better since they have had more time to mature. Second, there is the Instant Search feature which allows for quickly searching all the files on your computer. Again, OSX's Spotlight and Linux's Beagle beat Microsoft to the punch (not to mention you'd be just as well off downloading the free Google Desktop Search application for XP). Even after looking through Microsoft's "100 reasons why everyone's so speechless" promotional site, I'm still scratching my head-why would anyone pay money for Vista when other operating systems' features are superior and it doesn't offer anything compelling enough to "upgrade" from Windows XP?

Yet another reason not to get Vista is the draconian EULA, or End User License Agreement. You might also know this as the legalese that you don't read, scroll to the bottom of and hit the "I Agree" button. If you actually do take the time, however, to read the fine print on Vista's EULA, you'll find a host of distasteful surprises. For example, Microsoft reserves the right to regularly monitor your computer to check the legitimacy of programs and possibly delete ones without your knowledge. And don't even think about installing a single Vista copy on multiple computers: when you "activate" the software, you send information about your machine's hardware directly to Microsoft which will not allow you to activate a different hardware configuration . Add this to some lovely multimedia DRM that Microsoft includes in Vista, and you have an operating system that severely restricts your freedoms as a user. If you have any doubt about who is in control of your computer, just read the EULA for yourself: "this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights."

Don't be hypnotized by the pretty graphics -- putting Vista on your computer is one of the least desirable things you could do this side of hitting it with a baseball bat. If you really do need a new operating system, try one of the free ones like Ubuntu Linux. If you need a hardware upgrade, don't buy a PC with Vista pre-installed. Either get one with Windows XP or another operating system, or consider alternative solutions, like a Macintosh. Whatever you do, just don't downgrade to Vista.

Colligan is a science, technology and international affairs senior.

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----- Original Message -----

From: CLD

To: Bellringer

Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 2:18 PM

Subject: Adding to the Vista Fodder!

Patrick,

A small diversion from spiritual matters but I thought that I would add to the Windows Vista fodder. I am a Mac user so isn't relevant to me, but the following is from my neighbor who is a IT specialist in our local school system.

With love, light and a smile

CLD

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I have a spare hard drive for my laptop so I installed Vista on it. I must confess I was almost totally underwhelmed. The start menu layout is different and most important features are in a different place. User account control, which is supposedly the major step forward in security is very ‘in your face’ to the point where I imagine most people will click mindlessly on the warnings effectively rendering it useless. The new activation ‘features’ were relatively painless in my case. Most legacy software including a large number of drivers will not work in Vista because of the new ‘security’ measures. A frighteningly large number of hardware vendors were clearly not ready for Vista leaving us with an ocean of hardware which doesn’t work. Vista also comes with the new ‘DirectX 10’ video rendering system. Only one card on the market supports directx 10, and is available here in Australia for a modest $1k. There is no promise that this card will support directx 10.1 which is already in planning (MS have bad history with this).

On the upside they have put a game of Mahjongg – 22 years of Micro$oft and we finally get a game of Mahjongg.

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----- Original Message -----

From: MK

To: [email protected]

Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 4:18 PM

Subject: More on Vista

I have a friend who works IT for a small company which has 'upgraded' to Vista. He tells me every single time the hardware changes on a given computer, the license has to be upgraded. Thats right.. change a video card in a computer with Vista and you have to contact MS to be re-certified. I have experienced to this some extent with XP, where I changed a motherboard and had to re-register, but that only took a moment. My friend indicates that with Vista you actually have to repurchase the license upon any major change! Insanity.

MK