The challenge facing new Vista users

Stan Beer
Monday, 29 January 2007 03:41

Opinion and Analysis

After playing with Windows Vista and listening to the thoughts of various reviewers, there is not much doubt that Microsoft's new operating system is a considerable improvement on its previous efforts. However, for most users, upgrading will mean buying a new PC and for many that's where the problem lays.

A couple of months ago, I listened enviously as a colleague described his experience of upgrading from his five year old Mac to a new Intel based Mac.

"I simply connected the two Macs together and up popped a box on the screen which asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the new machine," he said. "I answered yes and then lay down on my couch. A couple of hours later, all my applications and data that was on my old Mac was now on my new Mac. Everything was the same except that on the new machine it ran about five times as fast."

That story made me want to run out and buy a Mac except I knew that I was doomed unless I started all over again from scratch - new applications, new peripherals and whatever.

Having just been handed a new business laptop PC, which will be used as a replacement for my ageing desktop, I realise the work that lays ahead of me. Moving the data and applications across from one PC to another is no trivial task. There is no "do you want to upgrade to a new PC?" button.

For business users, upgrading is the problem of whoever they hire to do the job. Home users would rather not pay anyone but they will probably have to - especially if they want to run a home network, using the new PC as the hub to share the Internet, and hand down the old PC to another family member. Configuring a home network is no trivial task in the PC world.

Then of course there is the issue of licenses. Will moving your applications to the new PC be an issue? With all this business about activation keys, will users be forced to prove that they're reinstalling applications because they're upgrading to new PCs and that they've de-installed applications from their old machines?

These are all questions home PC users would rather not - and really should not - have to address. However, Vista in most cases means new hardware and therefore address them they will or be damned. In some cases that may even mean a move away from Windows to a more consumer friendly environment like you know what.

A parting question for Microsoft: during all of those five years of Vista development, did it occur to you that it might help your case with consumers if you developed a "do you want to upgrade to a new PC" button?