Why Upgrade to 7, or Vista?

[david13]

I have XP and Vista and can see absolutely no advantage to Vista. I'm sure there may be some little ticks here and there, or maybe for the games world it may make a big difference, but I have never used a computer to play a game, other than the New York Time crossword.
So why would I care. I know people ooh, and aah, with these new programs about how it's 'More Powerful', but at what?
I don't see it, but I'm very sure Micro$oft sure likes it.
dc

[Warpy]

1. I won't upgrade until this box and the backup box both conk out

It looks like Windows 7 is what Vista was supposed to be, so I'll look for a new box with that on it.

However, that's in the future. I can't see upgrading all the guts in both boxes to upgrade to a new OS when I've had good luck with XP.

[demosincebirth]

5. Exactly

[Statistical]

2. Initially there likely is little reason.

However XP has many security flaws. Microsoft has addressed many of them by patches but this is an "imperfect solution".

To put it in simple terms:
XP trusts applications too much. This makes it (and you as the user vulnerable). All the security was added on top later but hackers, exploiters, malware writers are constantly loooking for "injection vectors" microsoft has overlooked

Vista & Windows 7 have a new kernel. All applications are UNTRUSTED. It was built from the ground up that anything running on the web, or locally is a THREAT. Windows XP can never be as secure. Not only does Win7 consider apps a threat it also considers them unsafe. It doesn't allows app native access to memory (to prevent misbehaving apps from crashing other apps). It also doesn't allow drivers to hook into the kernel (to prevent a poorly written driver from crashing the OS).

Nearly 50% of all blue screens are due to drivers. Hardware companies will always make crappy, rushed drivers and they present a risk. XP ability to deal with is limited.

Microsoft will continue to provide security updates until 2014 so if you don't want to upgrade you don't have too (at least not initially). Windows computer in the future will have Windows7 insalled so eventually you will be using Windows7 anyways. Simply put XP isn't going to ever get any safer but "evil" people will continue to exploit flaws in XP.

[hobbit709]

3. Funny how many Vista machines I've seen infected

with the same crap as I've seen on XP. Most infections that I've seen on computers that I've cleaned are caused by Human 1.0 errors. From what I've experienced 99% of security problems are caused by Internet ExploDer and Outhouse-as I call them- don't use those two misapplications and you've eliminated most of the problems.

[DainBramaged]

4. I have customers who STILL use 2000!!

They have no need to upgrade, their apps work fine thank you very mmuch.


:hi: