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Jose Manuel Tella Llop · Guest

I'm getting this question more and more lately and I thought I would
address it here.

I know I have talked about it here on the site before but I thought I would
break it down just a bit more and give some examples of when I would
recommend XP and when I would recommend Vista.

I also want to reiterate the need of making sure you have all the drivers
you will need before attempting an upgrade or a full install. XP drivers
WILL NOT work for Vista! Make sure you have Vista drivers at the ready!!!!

Home Users (non-technical)

Home Users right now are the perfect target audience for Vista as I see it
right now. People who are thinking about upgrading from XP to Vista and are
home users looking for security, decent PnP support and just want something
that "works" and really don't care about VPN's or file sharing are the only
ones who should make the jump at this time. I like it for the home users
for the simple fact they really only do a few things: email, web browsing,
printing, photo's (Vista is very good at this), and of course gaming (note:
some of the older games will not install at all under Vista). I also like
to point out to the parents the parental control setting which they really
seem to like. With more and more kids on the internet parents need
something (hell, anything) they can use to help protect their kids from the
"bad places and bad guys" on the web.

Home Users (Technical - require access to VPN and File Shares on a remote
network)

No way. Not at this time. Everyone who I have spoken with has had some sort
of issue with Vista (Business or Ultimate) when it comes to networking,
VPN, or remote access file sharing. I personally have had tremendous issues
just making a connection from one Vista client to another over a VPN
connection, or when I try and make a simple mount to a file server share. I
DO NOT recommend it for those who support multiple topologies. XP is the
only way to go at this time if you want to cover all your bases and not end
up drooling in a corner wondering why you can't make a connection to a
simple file share remotely.

Business Users: (in house behind a firewall - non-laptop)

For the business users who are thinking about deploying Vista to the
masses, oh. I would wait for SP1. If you are hell bent on installing Vista
I HIGHLY recommend a small test group first. You're going to need to test
all your applications, file shares (especially if you have Windows 2000
File Server installed) and of course your AV and anti-spyware packages. For
instance, I had to get a reghack from Buffalo to simply "talk" to a simple
file storage device I use for backups. I could see the drive but I couldn't
logon to the share without the hack. Most of the applications I use work
(excluding some older apps which, after a little digging around the web, I
was able to find newer applications which could take their place and work
under Vista).

Business Users: (Laptops)

I have to admit I have Vista 32 running on my HP laptop and overall it does
behave. That said I do have some issues from time to time, such as this
past weekend I was on my wireless at home and all of the sudden it just
quit working. Nothing I did would get the wireless service back online
other than a full reboot. If you have "early adopters" who are cool with
Vista's quirks, and are pretty much "office/web/email" users you can give
it a run and be pretty certain it will work for them. I do recommend you
test any VPN software you might have just too make sure they can make the
connection to the office and file shares they might need to access. It does
seem to benefit those people who are pretty, as I call them "straight-up"
users. Power users on the other hand. well. stick with XP for now.

I hope this helps some of those who are looking at Vista and wondering if
it will work for them. Vista is a different beast all around and people
really need to know what they are getting into.

//Digital

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Digital Dave
digital@winxpcentral.com
2004/2005/2006 Microsoft MVP
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=20917