Information Technology (IT)
Tech Department Answers Vista Questions
By Tim Wilkey
Jan 30, 2007 - 4:10:20 PM

Microsoft's newest opearating system, Windows Vista, has received quite a bit of press.  Here are 3 quick answers to some common questions.

1) Will Meigs County be installing Windows Vista on the existing computers in our schools and offices?

Because Windows Vista requires very aggressive hardware capabilities, well over one half of our county's machines are not qualified to run this new OS.  As you know, Meigs County recently performed a county-wide hardware and software upgrade taking all 500+ machines to WindowsXP Pro.

Newly purchased machines will come with the new Vista license but will be downgraded to WindowsXP Pro until we cycle through some of our older machines. 

A time-table for 100% Vista in Meigs County would require a full 36 months for the out-of-date systems to be refreshed at normal hardware purchashing rates.

The tech department is already testing the new OS and will consider a mixed environment wherein we run part Vista and part XPPro.

This would mean users COULD see VISTA on their machines as early as summer 2007.

2) I've heard there are many versions of Vista....is this true?

Yes.  There are several versions. 

Here's  a quick comparison of the main versions you'll commonly see--

• Vista Ultimate – EVERYTHING – Vista Business + MCE
• Vista Business – XP Pro equivalent; Has Aero and DNS for networking environment
• Vista Home Premium – Essentially MCE equivalent – Best home version feature-wise
• Vista Home Basic – no ‘Aero’ features.  Very basic.  File searching, indexing, etc. features of Vista are present.  ‘No thrills’ version. 

3) What exactly does VISTA have that's so much better than XPPro.

In one sense everything and in another sense nothing.

Some users see no need for the upgrade.  Others have been waiting years for a smoother, better looking interface, easy search capabilities, tabbed web browsing, more security, parental controls, more easily integrated RSS feeds, OS-based spyware protection...

XPPro is great.  Vista is newer, shinier and has some great features. 

The best thing to do is check it out for yourself.