Friends have been asking me for advice about Vista. Should they upgrade to Vista or not? My answer is fairly straightforward: It depends.
- If you have a computer that's more than a few months old, you'd be better off sticking with XP. You will need at least 1GB of RAM to run Vista, and you'll need 2GB to run it smoothly and take advantage of all its bells and whistles. Your graphics card will have to be fairly robust in order to benefit from Vista's graphics.
- If you have a new machine, and especially if you are due a free upgrade to Vista as part of your package, and assuming that your new machine meets the specs I mentioned above, you should go for it. Vista is, according to most experts, worth upgrading to.
- If you don't have a machine that's up to Vista standards, you'd be better off waiting for your next computer purchase, when you will get Vista pre-installed. In the meantime, you can gussy up your XP machine with Vista-like add-ons (see below).
If you are among the "sticking with XP" group, here are some nice, free applications that will give you some of the same capabilities as Vista.
