Six things to know about upgrading Windows Vista

WindowsVista, which has been jumping for more than a year, is finally available in the market. December 5 will be the date of the first official version of Vista, and the retail version for the home market will be available in January 2007. The final test version that has been leaked has completely unveiled Vista's "mystery", and Vista's function and appearance are completely exposed to our eyes. So far, WindowsVista has completely lost the mystery of the new product.

Maybe you are still expecting this version of "new" Windows, but the opinion of IT vendors is totally pessimistic: On October 27, Acer senior vice president Weng Jianren said that Microsoft Vista Home Basic Edition is a scam: "Vista The home base version of the feature 'too poor', consumers are definitely not willing to buy." On October 28, Dell CEO Kevin Rollins also said that Microsoft's hardware requirements are deceptive. What is the reason for these PC giants to lose confidence in Vista? And if you want to upgrade Vista in the near future, what should you know about?

1, ready to send more money to Microsoft

Although the final RMB price has not been disclosed, it is not cheaper than the overseas price. Previously revealed: "Home Basic Edition" Home Basic is priced at $199, "Home Deluxe Edition" Home Premium is priced at $239, "Commercial Edition" is priced at $299, and the more advanced "Ultimate Deluxe Edition" is sold. The price is 399 dollars. Scared? Because the Windows XP home version is now priced at 786 yuan (about 99 US dollars), XP's professional version is priced at 1270 yuan (about 160 US dollars). It can be seen how great it is to choose to upgrade Vista.

For pre-installed users, although Microsoft is currently launching a "free upgrade" program, promotional users can upgrade Vista for free. In fact, for most users, it still has to pay, and still a lot. Hewlett-Packard Company said that only the MCE version (Media Center Edition) A, U, M series products can be upgraded to Vista Home Premium for free during the promotion period. Sony only allows professional XP users to register, and more manufacturers do not participate. The upgrade plan. According to Microsoft's requirements, users must be "XP Professional Edition to register" the upgrade activity, while more than 80% of PCs and notebooks in the retail market are pre-installed "Windows XP Home Edition".

Most OEM manufacturers are particularly dissatisfied with the upgrade plan. Acer Acer, a world-class PC maker, said that due to Microsoft's price hikes, Vista Home Premium software costs 10% more than the XP home version, resulting in a global PC retail price increase of at least 2% to 3%.

2, choose the right version of the vast version of Vista

Microsoft originally planned to launch 8~9 Vista products, and now it is finally reduced to six: for the users of developing countries who have no money Vista Starter; Vista Home Basic, designed for general users who send and receive letters and paperwork on the Internet; includes all the features of Vista Home Basic, plus Aero graphics interface, MCE and Vista Home Premium with Xbox360 function; The basic Vista version of Vista Business; includes all the features of Vista Business, plus the addition of secret features such as Vista Enterprise; Vista Ultimate is all the features of the above five versions.

For consumers, choosing a version of Vista that suits you is not an easy task. The identity of the user is constantly changing. The company is a staff member. The study at home is an Internet surfer. In the living room, it is a player who is looking for entertainment... In fact, he may only have one laptop, so it is suitable for him. Only the Vista Ultimate version, but the price is very expensive. It is very likely that China will not launch the Vista Starter version, and users can only run up to three programs at a time, and too many features are cut off, which makes users discouraged.

3, Lose your old computer to buy a new

Although Microsoft promotes WindowsVista only needs 1G of memory, even in some cases 384MB of memory is enough, but Dell CEO Kevin Rollins apparently doesn't look this way. He said that Microsoft's hardware requirements are deceptive: "According to Microsoft, a PC with 1GB of RAM is enough to run Vista. But I think users may need 2GB of memory to run this well. An operating system. In addition, even if no other software is installed, the VistaUltimate version uses more than 10GB of hard disk, and the space occupied after running for a while is more serious.

The reporter measured, in 1GB of memory, just open a few web pages, physical memory quickly consumed, and had to use slow hard disk space as virtual memory. The graphics card is another rigorous hardware. Without a powerful 3D graphics card that supports DX9.0c, Vista's proud Aero transparent graphics interface does not work at all. Game users have also found that the same mainstream games will be slower than XP under Vista, such as the famous "World of Warcraft" online game. The reporter checked the PC configuration currently on the market, and the 2GB of memory that Dell CEO said was very small, no more than 3%, and fewer laptops. Dell only has 2GB of memory as standard for the top Dimension XPS700 Desktop, while other models are 512MB to 1GB of memory. Upgrading to 2GB requires an extra 1799 yuan.

4, psychological preparation for compatibility

A lot of existing software is not necessarily compatible with Vista, the most typical example is anti-virus software. Basically all anti-virus software designed for XP can't work under Vista. The famous Mcafee 8.0i Enterprise Edition directly causes Vista blue screen to crash after installation, and can no longer enter the system. The same is true for products from Symantec, ESET, and Kaspersky. The reporter learned that only after these companies can solve the new products for Vista, other applications have similar problems. For industry software, the situation is even more serious: if you don't pay, please rewrite the software company for Vista, otherwise it will stop working or execute errors. "This is because Vista's kernel has changed, it is NT6.0, and Windows XP is NT5.1. Incompatibility is expected." A software engineer commented.

Users who are accustomed to using online banking may be very depressed. At present, many online banking systems cannot be used normally under Vista. "Since installing Vista, I have not successfully logged in to online banking." A user told reporters. This situation may continue until the first half of next year, until banks can upgrade their online banking version to resolve. Network applications such as the "Unified Gateway" cannot be used normally. An IT engineer suggested: "You should keep an XP on your computer at the same time."

5, change existing operating habits and adapt

Windows Vista has a new feature: User Account Control (UAC). Microsoft promotes this as an important improvement of Vista. This feature is designed to prevent users from inadvertently licensing the operation of malicious programs. On the other hand, the constant confirmation window pops up and the user is overwhelmed. In fact, this technology is not Microsoft's innovation, Apple has implemented similar functions on Mac OS X a few years ago.

In Vista, UAC runs in the least privileged mode, and temporarily increases the privilege through the dialog box when needed to ensure system security. This brings a direct trouble: even if the user installs a small piece of software, or deletes a file, it will press the "confirm" button several times. In fact, the user only wants to handle their affairs as easily as possible, such as deleting a shortcut. Over time, the complicated confirmation process has caused the user to fall into a “confirmation fatigue syndrome”. Instead, when the need to be careful, the “confirm” button is incorrectly pressed. Of course, in the guidance of experts, you can also turn off UAC. However, Microsoft does not recommend this, they believe that UAC can effectively prevent users from inadvertently licensing the operation of malicious programs. But security experts told reporters that in fact UAC can be completely shut down by malware, only need to move the registry.

6, inevitable safety and various defects

According to past experience, every time Windows is changed, there will be various defects, although rigorously tested, but at the time of sale It cannot be completely solved. This is why Windows 2000/XP has SP1, SP2, SP3, and SP4 versions. Each SP version represents a large number of defects that have been modified. According to reports, when Vista RC2 version, the internal defects of the software have been reduced from 2,479 to 1,450, and Microsoft plans to reduce the number of software defects from 1,450 to about 500 (the software industry called RTM, Release To Manufacturing). .

If you know that your software product has more than 500 known defects that have not been resolved, are you still confident? This has not yet calculated those defects that have not yet been exposed. Microsoft told PC makers that, no matter what, the final release date is no longer delayed. In other words, even if you know that there are many problems, Microsoft still insists on selling "problem products." The important component of Vista, IE7, has been released in advance. In less than two weeks, IE7 has exposed a second security hole. The latest vulnerabilities could lead users to enter sensitive information, such as credit card details, usernames or passwords, in pop-ups containing malicious code, which could become a victim of "phishing sites." The vulnerability was not fixed until the press release.