Vista is nice but not necessary - yet

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 30 January 2007 15:56

Opinion and Analysis

Vista is supposed to be a safer and more secure operating system than than XP. However, improvements in the security part - that is the anti-malware component - are contentious. Yes, the UAC (user account control) feature puts up additional layers of query boxes each time a user tries to do something that might be construed as a security risk.

I'm not alone in believing that many users will simply tick the UAC query boxes and others will eventually come to regard this feature as an annoyance and simply turn it off. Currently, all good anti-virus and Internet security packages present users with query boxes and recommendations of how they should respond whenever an action needs to be performed that could lead to a potential security breach. Inevitably, users in most cases simply tick the box to allow the action to be performed.

Probably the most impressive aspect of the security features is the ease of which parents can control use of the computer by their children. They can set the times of day that their children can use the PC, limit the websites they visit and the games they play. It's all very user friendly and straight forward. Is this a must a have right now? For some parents with young children, perhaps.

Microsoft tells us that Vista will take graphics and gaming to a new level and will make networking a lot easier. Not being a hard core gamer, I can't really judge that aspect. However, I really don't have a problem with getting on to Wi-Fi networks with Windows XP and have never suffered a security breach through my firewall knock on wood. Do I really need to tell the system whether the network is home, office or a public place? As far as I'm concerned, whenever I'm on a Wi-Fi network, it's the equivalent of being in a public place.

At the Vista launch, Microsoft demonstrated how pretty Vista can look with a moving picture as a background for the screen. A flowing waterfall certainly looks more impressive than a static screen shot and I certainly look forward to having it on my next PC. But that's the story of Vista. It's the operating system for your next PC.