Remember all those years ago the hype around this super operating system designed with graphics and multi media in mind? From the Wiki .....

Windows Me (IPA pronunciation: Officially [mi?],Often Mispronounced[?m i?]), also known as Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Mistake Edition (see criticism), is a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft. It was originally codenamed Millennium. A successor to Windows 95 and Windows 98, Windows Me was marketed as a "Home Edition" when compared to Windows 2000 which had been released seven months earlier. It provided Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows Media Player 7, and the new Windows Movie Maker software, which provided basic video editing and was designed to be easy for home users.

Now isnt this funny - Vista - with the new Aero Interface that takes advantage of the GPU - especially handy if you have software that can take advantage of this - maybe games? Home software? Oh and Vista has a new Windows Media Player 11 - and its been embedded into the operating system so you cannot disable it - by the way if you use third party products for Multi Meda chances are you will break Media Player 11 - and you CANNOT fix it - trust me, I have been at this for a while. Oh, and there is the new Media Centre - takes Movie Maker to a new level - hummm - again targetted at films and TV, HD TV etc

They Vista is also build with security in mind - from the launch by Mr Gates  - this was about malware and phishing, also checking his daughters chat logs - lets get real - we have thrid party products that do a better job. But hey, isnt this what IE 5 did for us in ME. We just used the market and installed great third party tools.

So - why, oh why, if I now have a stable and highly scalable and peformant XP SP2 system, using third party security tools that lock my machine down and protect me a dam sight better than Microsoft products, would I want to change to a new bloatware operating system thats forcing me to pay new licensing and upgrade hardware that has years of life left in it?

To secure my browsing - no - third party products can do this. You still need these third party products with Vista as Vista does not do it all for you. It does lock things down inside but isnt this just fixing the flaws in their own code.

To view my daughters chat logs as Bill Gates does - No - I would get a slap from my daughter - there are again monitoring tools that do this - also you could already do this in XP - Bill check out your own product.

To play movies and multi media - No - XP has Windows Media Player 10 which is better than 11 which, if you install in XP will try and cripple your machine. Also - use Power DVD, WinDVD or Nero - they are all better. In addition Microsoft is getting into the Media Rights and licensing business and deciding what you can and cannot watch or listen to. Its becoming the police of the Movie and Music business. It also makes mistakes and your right to choose what you want to play and listen to have been removed in some cases.

For MP3's start using ITunes - it works on XP or other players, and by the way ITunes is great on Vista. My new Shuffle Rocks! Apple is Cool! ( I will debate the Zune at a later date  )

Maybe to run Office 2007 - No - it runs great and faster on my XP machine - as do all Office productivity tools. Maybe Office 2007 should have been crippled only to run on Vista and then Vista might sell more. The Office Team need to teach the OS team a thing or two. Being totally serious, Office is so hot with great features and usability it puts Vista in the background.

To run my business applications - No - because a lot of them need some form of admin priv or they have to run in compatibility mode. So if I am running my apps in XP compatible mode on Vista why go to the pain of upgrading to Vista.

To use my new USB devices - No - most of them have real issues with Vista as there are no drivers and its not simple if Vista doesnt like them. hey Vista has just blacklisted my Microsoft Explorer Optical Mouse and even using the new universal mouse drivers written by Microsoft for Vista I cant get the mouse to work. So for weeks it worked now it doesnt. Bit like Vista. But at least it crashes and reboots gracefully.

To have a repair facility for resilience - No at least with XP if you had a serious issue you could do a repair with the XP disk. Not Vista - at least if you missed the fact that you should have created a backup image of your installation. Without that you cannot repair and have to do a clean install again.

To play Second Life - No - Vista has a real issue with OpenGL and graphics cards and one of the best virtual reality systems in the world will not play on most machines with Vista installed unless to have a totally compatible Second Life Video card with the correct drivers. Microsoft seems to be forcing the Open Graphics community to go their way! Is this being a control freak or am I going mad!

I could write a book on Vista - I love using it on my work laptop - but I am a geek - this love affair is about having the newest of something so I know how it performs. I talk to my family and they are not interested, they want a PC/Laptop that starts, is fast so they dont wait 5 mins for it to boot, can run multiple applications and doesnt crash - hey XP does all of this. In all seriousness I am struggling to find a business justification to tell people to move forward. Please Mr Gates help me and provide a credible case. Otherwise - everyone - is this the ME of 2007? I think it is and we should give it a miss and wait for the next Wow! For those who dont know - Vista is being launched as the Wow! What rubbish!

I actually think Microsoft have done themselves no favours with XP as they have virtually got it right - as long as you manage your XP installation properly you have a completely stable and robust operating system that can take advantage of 32 and 64 bit and which the whole wolrd of software and hardware development supports. The world is not going to change what it does over night so unless you are forced to move to Vista as a shop sold you a machine with it on. As yet dont bother.

Eddie