Once you’ve looked at the semi-transparent window borders in Vista’s aero user interface, you’ll understand that Vista is all about Productivity. Nothing says “Power number-crunching” like a well-designed spreadsheet stylishly trimmed with a blurred view of your wallpaper.

Then there’s Vista’s search capabilities, which are built into everything. Click the Start button, type a word, and up comes every file, email message, and contact on your hard drive containing that word (provided, of course, that every file, email message, and contact on your hard drive was created in a Microsoft application--and preferably not in a Microsoft application for which a newer version is now available). Type a word in Windows Explorer’s Search box, and you’ll instantly learn why you need to click the Advanced link. Even Windows Mail offers two search options: There’s an intuitive, simple, and astonishingly fast index search, plus the old, slow, and clumsy Find Messages dialog box from Outlook Express--useful if you actually need to locate something.

(Speaking of Outlook Express, that reeking old program is now history. In its place, Vista offers Windows Mail, identical to Outlook Express in every way except compatibility.

Security is the name of the game with Vista, and not only because it has replaced all those old bugs and exploits with new ones. Vista’s new firewall breaks technological ground by blocking outgoing as well as incoming traffic in a manner once thought impossible for a Microsoft-built firewall. And this essential bit of security is available to everyone who knows how to turn it on!

And you need never worry about crooks accessing your shared folders over a network. How can they when you’re unlikely to ever figure out how to share a folder?

Downhill Upgrade

Now that you’re salivating over the perfect operating system, which version of Vista should you run out and buy? Here are your options:

Home Basic: For very little money, you can proudly tell your friends you’re running Vista. You’ll just have to click Startup, Computer, Properties to prove it.

Home Premium: Vista for people who think their computer is a TiVo, and never back up their hard drives, anyway.

Business: For those who want a beautiful interface with no fun attached.

Ultimate: Is your computer for business or entertainment? The perfect version of Windows for people who can’t make up their minds but still have money to burn.

Great! You’ve bought your copy of Vista. Now all you need to do is install it. Just as soon as you upgrade a few things.

First, you’ll need more RAM. True, I don’t know how much RAM you currently have, it’s not enough. How much more do you need? Remember that really large, roomy hard drive you had ten years ago?

Rather than simply adding to your current RAM, we suggest you remove the motherboard’s existing memory and install something fresher and faster. And don’t worry about throwing away the old RAM. You’ll need it for your new graphics card.

Now that your hardware is ready, go ahead: Install Vista!

Wasn’t that fun? Vista’s installed, and it’s time for the great driver scavenger hunt. You get search for Vista drivers for every piece of hardware inside or plugged into your computer. If you can’t find them all, or if they don’t all work, don’t panic. Just go out and buy yourself a new computer with Vista already installed.

Hard News on Software

A new computer saves you the hassle of installing Vista, but you’ll still have to install your old programs. With luck, some of them may work.

Don’t despair when one doesn’t. There may be a free update available for Vista compatibility. Updating a program is usually a simple matter of downloading the update, running the update program, being told that it can’t run unless the original program is installed on your computer, launching the installation program from the original program CD, and discovering that the part of this old, beloved application that doesn’t work with Vista is the installation program.

Of course, if the program won’t install, it may simply be because you are not logged on as an Administrator. You can recognize this situation because the screen will darken and you’ll be told that this task requires the presence of someone with administrator privileges. By contrast, if you are logged on as an Administrator, the screen will darken and you’ll be told that this task requires the presence of someone with administrator privileges.

Should the needed update be unavailable or unrunnable, and if it’s not an administrator problem, there are other options. You can buy another, Vista-compatible version of the program. You can buy a competing program. Or best of all, you can buy Microsoft’s competing program.

Should none of these pan out, you could learn to live with the fact that your favorite program will crash every time you type the word aardvark.

But don’t despair. You have invested in a vastly superior operating system. With a little work and money, you can make run it as quickly, efficiently, and easily as Windows XP.

© Copyright 2007 by Lincoln Spector