Is Windows Vista good or not?

It depends…

Vista certainly looks a lot nicer, can be easier to use and is a lot more secure than Windows XP. However to look nicer and to have some of the easier to use features, Vista requires more “grunt” to run, and the security features can also be a pain in the a*s - its suspicious of almost everything. For a beginner or general home user, its more pleasant to use than XP, but if you’re going to want to do some complex things it becomes a huge hinderance. Certainly networking can be a problem depending on what type of Vista you get.

At work, we’ve just got 6 new computers with Vista Business. I turned one on and used Vista for a while, the computer ran quite nicely. I took another of these new machines and got rid of Vista, I put XP on instead - the computer ran like a rocket. Because our system at work is incompatible with Vista, I’m putting XP on all of them anyway, but it was quite remarkable to see the difference side by side.

Vista is hampered at the moment with the fact that a lot of users, and even developers (those who make programs) are waiting until Service Pack 1 fixes bugs before they buy a computer with Vista or develop programs and drivers for it. This will change, and XP is already 6 years old - its only going to get older, and as time goes on it will get less and less support. But because its 6 years old, there’s been a lot of time to get XP bugs removed and working like a dream.

The choice is yours - Vista might give you some issues for now, but those will go away in time and you’ll have an up to date machine. With XP, it will be faster to run, but will in general become obsolete sooner. You could get XP on it, and in a few years put Vista on it - or you could do the sensible thing, and buy a Mac :)

Oh, and I should add, if you do want Vista, DO NOT get Vista Home Basic - get Home Premium as an absolute minimum. Home Basic is not only limited in features, but also some important functionality which is likely to cause it issues as time goes on, so avoid it like the plague!

Vista is impractical and a resource hog. There are too many things wrong with it as it is now. You are better off to wait until bugs are fixed and the operating system actualy starts living up to it’s name

I don’t have vista, but my mom does on her laptop. I don’t like it. It’s hard to explain. I think it is too sensitive as far as security(firewalls and blockers and stuff like that). I have XP on my desktop and laptop, and I am very happy with it. I wouldn’t trade it for vista.