I�m pretty sick and tired of the a majority of tech bloggers, columnists and forum trolls completely bashing Microsoft and Windows Vista. I�m a huge Apple fan but have been using Vista at work since RTM in November of 2006. By day, I�m an MCP and work for an IT company and primarily specialize in Windows Server, Cisco Appliances and a little Mac IT work as well. I love Outlook 2007 and live in it each day. In fact, I have a second monitor that is set vertically just for Outlook. Vista has a couple of quirks just like Mac OS 10.5 and I deal with him in hopes that they�ll one day be fixed but it�s nothing huge.

I�ve also had my fair share of system boot problems after installing incompatible software. When Vista was first released, I had problems with NVIDIA drivers, an incompatibility with the Cisco VPN client and Adobe Reader problems. There�s also some ongoing issues that I have with scheduled tasks and scheduling backups and disk defragmentation that I just can�t seem to get resolved. I�ve never had to reload my box after moving to Vista and await SP1�s release in about 20 days.

That�s a little about my experience and reason for using Vista. The first year of Vista for Microsoft was a difficult one strictly because the consumers weren�t ready. We thought that we wanted and needed Vista but we weren�t ready for it. There are a few issues that Microsoft had to tackle this year that aren�t an issue in 2008. The first problem is that Vista was built for next generation hardware and if you bought a $299 Dell in 2007, Vista, which was released in Jan. Of 08, was just too much for your little cheapo system. Dvorak wrote an article in PC World stating what you�ll need to really run Vista. A few points included, 4gbs of ram, a Core2Duo or Quad CPU, a 512Mb next generation video card and ideally, a RAID configuration of some sort.

If you had a system that could handle Vista, you�re probably rich or a geek and if you�re a geek then there was another factor that kept you from moving to Vista. As a geek, you have Windows configured just how you like it. Hell, you�ve had 7 years to configure XP to your liking and you�ve compiled software and hardware that will only ever work with XP and you need it for some reason and just can�t move to Vista due to the hassle of reconfiguring everything and losing your previous $4.99 shareware app that changes your wallpaper every 5 seconds.

The business market also didn�t move to Vista. We�re still not recommending Vista to our clients until SP1 is released. It�s not due to computability issues. The problem we�ll have is teaching our clients how to use it. Cubicle workers know XP and know how to do basic troubleshooting but when they move to Vista, we�ll have daily calls from every person asking how to do this and that. It�s an IT migraine that a lot of companies are putting off as long as possible. This is one of the primary reasons Dell lets Small Business workstation sales have Vista Business or XP Pro. IT Departments would go elsewhere if they�re forced to buy another 50 Dell computers with Vista only.

What�s so different about 2008? For starters, every system released $299 and up works with Windows Vista and there aren�t many apps that you can find over at download.com that don�t work with the OS and if that old app was never upgraded, there�s certainly another application that was developed for Vista to replace it. IT departments know Vista now and they have to move eventually so they�ll start moving users over in small lots for the next year or so. There won�t be many large deployments but as new systems are purchased that come with Vista, IT will deploy them and educate the users on a smaller basis instead of switching an entire company. Geeks are trusting Vista now and in some cases, looking forward to the move. The amount of new software and hardware that Vista can take advantage of and was developed on Vista has grown tremendously which is helping the migration.