How Microsoft Vista Can Benefit Those That Don't Buy It

The week prior to the writing of this article contained the business release of the latest Microsoft Operating System (OS): Vista. The beta (trial run) version for Vista has been out for some time now.

The general consensus about Vista? It's pretty good. There are some pro's and con's about Vista that the general public should know about. But most importantly, the general public should know how they can cash in, as it were, on this upgrade.

Do you need a new computer? Don't want to spend a lot of money, if any? Then find a friend that is a computer gamer and, especially over the next few weeks as the general release of Vista comes to fruition. Many people are interested in buying the latest and greatest whatever, so they will be sure to purchase Vista simply because it is new. But gamers especially want the latest and greatest system, upgrading their components on a regular basis regardless of the latest OS release. Now with a new release on the horizon, systems will be upgraded left and right. Just tell your gaming friend before he or she upgrades that you like to collect computer parts, and you may find a whole bunch of parts sent your way.

But not only gamers will be upgrading because of the new release of Vista. One big promotional item for Vista is that it has a lot more "eye candy," or looks generally sharper than XP or Microsoft Windows has in the past. But with this extra visual effect Vista requires a good deal more fire-power. This means stronger video cards and higher ram to keep Vista up and running smoothly on the computer. If the consumer doesn't have the higher power pc but wants Vista, then she/he is going to need to upgrade his/her hard ware. As more upgrades occur, more of the computer parts that have worked great up to this point will come on the market. So, even if your friends aren't gamers, maybe a few of them will be interested enough in Vista to buy it. The upgrade to the new system may send some "old" parts your way if you make sure they know you are interested.

Another way to "cash in" on the release of Vista is to just stick with your copy of XP. For one thing, XP will be more secure with a new release, if history has been any indication. Every time a new OS release for Windows has occurred in the past, all of the guerilla virus-writing-Microsoft haters have upgraded their tactics to combat the new code in the new system. They assume that the older OS is obsolete so they leave it alone. It could easily be predicted that this can occur with the release of Vista as well. Although it has been suggested that Vista will be more secure than XP, most assuredly it will be out of fashion to write viruses for the older XP, so XP may be allowed to operate smoothly in it's obsolete-ness.

For another thing, although the beta version of Vista has been out for some time, certainly there will be some bugs that need to be worked out with Vista. Many of the bugs may be much more than previous XP lovers will want to deal with. In this instance, if you kept your copy of XP running then it will be your way of selling short, or assuming that Vista would be more trouble than it's worth.

In my opinion, if you are interested in the extra eye candy of Vista but don't want to pay the price, just use a version of Linux that you like. Take the friend's pc that they left behind after their Vista upgrade and add Ubuntu Linux on it, or whichever version you like. Linux (and for that matter, OS X from Macintosh) has had a great deal of eye candy for years now with Beryl and Compiz, not to mention KDE in general. With a little learning you could have a system that is more stable than Windows, impervious to Windows viruses, looks dramatically better than Vista and does more than you could possible need a pc to do, all for virtually nothing in price (compared to buying a new pc with Vista on it).

Vista may be the greatest thing to the computer world just as sliced cheese is the greatest thing to a sandwich. But if you like your system now, do you need a new one? If you don't, keep your eyes and ears open for other systems out there. The release of Vista may be your ticket to more free computers.