To Vista or not to Vista THAT is the Question:

Whether it is nobler to stay with Windows XP or to suffer the slings and arrows of Windows Vista.

Ok, that is MORE then enough bad Shakespere.

Do you need Vista? No. Certainly not. Is Vista cool? Kinda. Is Vista going to be THE OS (Operating System) in the next 2 years? You bet. Microsoft has what is called a 'Life Cycle' for it's OSs. This is about every 5 years. You might recall this back when Windows 98 bit the dust. (In the background you can hear the resounding cheers for the death of Windows 98.) Windows 2000 is really on it's way out, XP is in the latter middle of it's life cycle and Vista is here to stay. (As an side note, if you read Time Magazine for the week of Feb 12th Bill Gates has a short interview of like 10 questions, talks about the future of Microsoft, what he is going to be doing after he steps down, blah, blah, blah. However he does mention that the next OS is already in development and he thinks he will be around for it's debut. Think about THAT for a minute.)

For all the hype Vista was getting, especailly when it was called Longhorn, this was going to be the system that was going to be up there with sliced bread. It was going to make coffee, do your homework for you, make your breath better and make you better looking to the opposite sex all you had to do was purchase it. Guess what? Didn't happen.

Don't get me wrong, Vista has some nifty features. The Aero screen, looks cool, the crispness of the display, very cool, 6 or 9 different versions depending on where you live in the world, again very cool. If you're the guy that just needs a computer to run, Vista Basic. If you're the guy, or girl pardon me ladies, that needs to have every toy under the sun? Vista Ultimate. However there is a price tag for all of this.

RAM. RAM. RAM. Have I mentioned RAM yet? For the computer to run well, you need, probably, and I say this as I'm testing it out on two machines, probably 2 gigs of RAM on the motherboard and at least a video card with 256 megs of ram on it. Processor has to be fast, etc. etc. etc. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, or Microsoft is.

You pretty much need a new, Vista made, computer. Dell for example before Vista was selling a desktop for about 299.00 which was perfect for the 3 day a week computer user. Today, I don't think you can get a PC from Dell that has Vista on it for less then 359.00 (and you can't buy an XP machine) http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/dimen?c=us&cs=04&dt=List&l=en&s=bsd

So....Vista is neat, you don't need it, and we at LTOL are suggesting waiting till about April till you purchase a new machine with Vista just to see what the bugs are and have them fixed.

This is ESPECIALLY true if this is the business machine for you. I doubt you would go out and purchase the first production year of a a new car, why do it with a computer that you also use everyday when your old computer will be just fine.

Also, as a part of the shameless plug division of LTOL you can always come in to get a RAM upgrade for your XP machine which will make that machine happier by far. RAM up to 1 gig is running ABOUT, close too, not for every machine, but a 100.00 so give us a call and we will be happy to discuss Vista, XP, Microsoft, Congress, Flying Monkeys from the Wizard of Oz with you.