… Remember that name as you will see it appear in the news very soon. It’s not only a country, but also the codename for a service pack for Windows Vista. Due for release… this year’s end with any luck.
Yes. This year. The same year Windows Vista is launched a service-pack is planned for it. Now you might wonder why Microsoft choose for this seemingly fast followup. I however completely understand.
See, Windows XP was released in 2002. Now, giving the support lifecycle they carry - a new OS was due for 2006. As we all know, that slipped into 2007. As that happened Windows XP Professional and recently XP Home and MCE’s extended support have been extended well into 2008/2009.
In addition to that, Windows Vista was in testing for 18 months. A lot of features got cut, that I personally - and I am sure others as well - would love to have seen in the product. WinFS and MAX come to mind most prominently.
Those are the biggest reasons for the SP. Not because of the ‘ major bugs’ as I have heard being whispered. Yes there are some issues in Windows Vista - but those are fixable with a hotfix and most of those issues are only evident in Enterprise usage. Home-users are not or barely affected - but hey…
Having said that, I still wouldn’t advise people to jump on right away. Sure the techy/geeky guys and girls will jump over - I expect them to. But for the average Joe / Jane - Windows XP will suffice. Especially since Service Pack 3 will be coming this or next year (I personally hope this year) There have been murmurs of some jumpover point for WinFS for Windows XP. I would love to see that.
Game-wise there isn’t much reason to jump over just yet as well. Most games do run under Windows Vista - but not any better then on Windows XP. In fact, some games run better on Windows XP. I am sure that given time and proper driver-development these issues will be resolved and maybe even reversed - but right now I’d say you are fine running Windows XP.
However, if you are like me - and want the latest and greatest; hop on! Even though the above is true, it’s stable (it is for me though…) and runs great. Just not better then Windows XP… YET!
We will see how it goes in due time.
Keep in mind boys and girls… Windows Vista is not yet due for launch until the end of January, which is in a few days. Retail versions are starting to appear, and hopefully so will the Windows Vista drivers. Please note that Vista already supports a LOT of devices out of the box already and in some cases you can use the WHQL drivers for Windows XP, albeit it with an additional warning and possible errors. Be sure to use the backup tool / System Restore!
Ugh, that was the geeky news… and now on to the personal tid-bit. I am tired and want to go to bed. Which I fully intend to do within the hour. Any case, doing OK here - just tired. Take care all.
