Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade Additional License Pack - 1 PC

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Microsoft has many enemies. That's what happens when you are #1 and many below you wish they could be at the top.

Vista is a solid product. It was not as solid the day it was released, but what is? It's now only been a few months and the updates that apply the moment you install or upgrade to Vista provide you with a smooth experience.

Is the interface different? Oh yea. Is it bad? Is it slow? No. It's fine. Vista runs only SLIGHTLY slower on an older PC with a Pentium III chip or older but why wouldn't you expect that? You can't get more features AND more power and expect a faster machine when your hardware is getting along in the years.

In addition, if you simply don't understand the nature of Vista, then you haven't yet read Greg Perry's "Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows Vista All in One" (Amazon Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows Vista All in One (Sams Teach Yourself)) and frankly, this is hands-down the best way for a newcomer - even if you are or are not comfortable with XP - to master EVERYthing you REALLY need to know about Vista.

Software is not always obvious. That does not mean it's bad or difficult to use or requires a huge learning curve. Once you get Vista, beg or borrow or buy "Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows Vista All in One" and you will be ready to become a MASTER at the product. I went through what YOU are going through and I know most Vista books and sites DO NOT give you what you need to make this product work well FOR YOU. This book does and I've read all the top-selling Vista books.

Now I don't care if you get "Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows Vista All in One" or not, although you should, but you need to stop listening to the hype of those who have axes to grind with Microsoft. If you want to move FORWARD with your computer you need to have the juice needed which means a moderately recent PC and you need Vista.

The number one reason for getting Ultimate and not a lower Vista product is the BitLocker encryption technology and the ability to make a ghosted image of your disk drive that Vista can restore. If you've used Symantec's DriveImage or Ghost products then you know these alone can run you more than $50. It's thrown in with Vista Ultimate and you'll REALLY use these tools a lot.

Don't buy Vista--any version, yet. MS released it WAY too early. Some examples why:

* Too many hardware drivers not yet available, i.e., Creative Audigy sound cards; Nvidia graphics cards, and Linksys wireless network components, just to mention a few. When I contacted product manufacturers, I sensed a ho-hum attitude. Moreover, some peripherals are totally incompatible. Example: My Epson Perfection 1650 scanner was rejected by Vista, so I was forced to buy a newer model (Epson Perfection 4990 Photo). Hmmmm. One wonders whether these sorts of incompatibilities result more by design (purposely?) than from insurmountable technological deficiencies.

* Too many Vista compatible application updates are not yet available.

* The "Upgrade" versions of MS Vista (versus the "full" versions) seem to be full of bugs. Soon after I installed Vista Ultimate, I encountered a major problem that MS tech support has been trying to resolve for over two weeks. It is so pervasive that MS Outlook 2007 has been affected to the extent that some of its features are not available. It appears that during the installation process, something went awry with "Windows Event Log" and the "Event Viewer." Furthermore, the latest version (Vista compatible) of Diskeeper 2007 Pro will not launch, most likely for the same reason.

* It appears MS went way overboard on security features to the extent of paranoia. Every time you click on just about anything, a pop-up will appear asking your permission to "allow" it to launch. Very annoying, and VERY unnecessary. It's as though MS adopted an underlying assumption throughout the development process that the average end user has an IQ of about 85.

* MS tech support quality has deteriorated substantially. Most of the time when you call you will reach someone in India. Albeit these people are very polite, they cannot think "outside the box." Nor are they in touch sufficiently enough with the nuances of the English language, thus impairing expeditious understanding on both sides of the conversation. Based upon my recent experience with these folks, I sense that a soccer mom could be trained as a MS tech support rep in very little time. What I mean by that is this: During my multiple contacts with them I developed the feeling they rely totally on reading from manuals, scripts, and on-line knowledge bases. In other words, they seem not to be able to analyze and troubleshoot problems independent of external references.

* Bottom line: Do NOT purchase Vista until AFTER service pack 1 is released, or whatever they happen to name their first major fix-it update package. For now, stay with the more reliable XP versions. I truly regret that I had to discover all of this the hard way. It has been very costly in more ways than one.

First of all, let me say that I have only really been working in the IT Field now for about 6 years, but DO know what I'm talking about (Famous Last Words, right?).
I have been using Windows Vista since last October and even THEN, I haven't experienced as much grief with this product as all of these people. It really leads me to believe that they really just don't know what they're doing. When I purchased Vista Ultimate on it's actual Release day in January, I purchased the Vista Family pack as to get the two additional Upgrade licenses of Vista Home Premium and I was able to install Vista, both editions, onto 3 completely different PCs with virtually no problem issues at all; no driver compatibility issues, no major performance issues (2 of the PCs that got Home Premium are about 3-4 years old, so of course they are going to run a bit slower than my main PC with Vista, a P4, 3.4Ghz).
I am using a Linksys WRT55AG Wireless Router (Absolutely NO Issues at all)that was discovered right away and I have yet to have ANY issues with it. I also have an NVidia GPU and other than not having the ability for Desktop Spanning, all is well on that front as well. Even both of my WD External Drives Drivers were installed with no problems. My Printer was also installed right away without any issues. I have an HP PSC750, and it's about 7 years old.
Like I said in the Title, I just don't get it. So many people want to find ANY reason to hate Microsoft... Well, why did you buy this in the first place if you were just going to bash it? Why not just stick with all of the cracked copies out there and save your money?
I purchased Vista because I believe it to be a far superior product over XP. Yeah it's flashy and looks like another very famous OS, but it's not that OS. It's not XP. It's new and better and over time, people will see that it's not just another Windows Me.