Well, Vista is a lot different than XP. XP looked and worked like previous MS operating systems. (as far as the user is concerned). An example: In XP if you wanted to change the desktop, you would right click on the desktop and select 'Properties' The you would be presented with a window with a bunch of tabs. Click the tab, make your changes. In Vista, you right click the desktop and select Personalize. Then you are presented with a menu window. There you might select Backround. This opens another window with selections on it and posibly more links to more windows. When you are done, you back out to the 'main' menu window and select something else to change, open more windows, then back out to the main window. Repeat this for everything you used to do with a few tabs. Instead of 5 minutes to set up your desktop, it now takes 20 minutes.
MS has decided that the user can no longer have complete control of their system. You can't turn off Hibernate (easily) even if you are running on a desktop machine. Defrag is set to run automatically. You can drill through a few menus and shut this off though. The 'Administrator' account is disabled, and on some versions almost imposible to enable.
In MS's quest to be more like Linux, the command prompt has become more prevelant. Point: Vista come with a backup utility built in. It can make a backup of the system without rebooting. Ala-Acronis. But it cannot send the backup accross a network. Unless, you know how to do it via the command prompt. The command prompt is the only way to disable Hibernate too. The command prompt is used to enable the Administrator account, and to set up user accounts.
Also, to try and be like Linux, if you click on something that needs 'Elevated Privleges' a window will pop up (User Account Control) with a warning about using the program/app. For now. Eventually you will have to log on as administrator and have the correct password to continue. Just like Linux.
As far as upgrading from one version to the next: it's reasonably easy ( but a little buggy at the moment) If your computer came with Home Basic, and you want to move up to Ultimate, you buy the upgrade lcense, and get a new CD key. Put the Vista DVD in you machine, choose update, punch in the new CD key and let it do it's thing.
Then there is all the stuff MS has FUBARed. Windows Explorer is worthless and complicated. The general consenses is you will need a third party app for file management.
Search is a joke. It can't find anything, and indexing can take three days or more. It is so complicated to use, most people will use Google search or some other third party app. (And MS refuses to reinstall XP search)
The Boot menu (boot.ini is history) can only be changed via the command prompt. There is already a third party app out to do this. This is more for making changes to dual boot systems.
Vista System Restore works occasionally. It will corrupt XP System Restore points on a dual boot system and vice-versa.
Connecting to a computer on a network takes forever. And it appears Vista is constantly polling network computers for something??? Maybe that will be fixed.
Vista Glass desktop works right out of the box, if you system has the horsepower to run it. No activation needed. (for now???)
I have yet to figure out what good is the "Sidebar" You can add Gadgets or some sort of nonsense to this thing. I Guess it's a MAC thing.
The Shutdown button does not shutdown the computer. It puts it to Sleep. And it's a pain in the ass to fix.
In a couple months, MS will release SP2 for XP 64bit. This is the MS operating system to have. Fast, stable and easy to use.
Bozo :joker:
