I like Windows XP, but I don’t much like Vista. I tried it for a few months and found it gorgeous to look at and fairly easy to navigate. I didn’t much care for the search feature. I actually use search for just about everything on Windows XP, but Vista would find everything. For example, if applications weren’t made for Vista, it would find them or show them in the Add/Remove Programs. Which brings me to that subject. Its so new that it still lacks the drivers to support even my fairly recently purchased printer. I also had trouble running VMWare and other applications. VMWare 6.0 must be purchased to work fully with Vista. I got VMWare 5.x to work partially, but it would do strange things like shut down the computer for seemingly no reason or not run certain operating systems (Ubuntu) from a disc. Ubuntu did work as an ISO image on my local computer, though.

Vista has potential to be a great Desktop OS in about a year when more vender’s support it and it becomes the new standard, but until then I will stick with XP and use Vista for practice. I really enjoyed the Media Center (which is also in some version of XP). I would NOT use it as any kind of operational system running critical resources. I’ve heard Windows 2003 Server is good stuff and I wouldn’t doubt it.

When XP first came out I was all about 2000 and not fully convinced about the new kid on the block. I now feel the same about Vista. One thing I am definitely sick of is that Microsoft releases Vista and then promises to completely stop supporting Windows XP some time in the summer of 2008. This forces everyone to move to Vista. That is pretty aggressive and I am personally not going to take it any more. I’m going to start moving to Ubuntu slowly but surely. I’d like to stay on top my MS OS skills but I don’t want to be completely at their mercy anymore.