Why you should avoid Windows Vista like the plague (at least for now) Part 2

In this three-part article I will talk about three big reasons you should avoid "upgrading" to Windows Vista, at least for now. This is part two of three.


In the first part of this article, I told you the first of three reasons I don't think you should be getting the new Windows Vista, and why you should stick to Windows XP or Mac OS X.

In this article, I'm going to continue with the second reason that, at least for now, Vista is a turkey and you should avoid getting it.

Reason #2:

Not all of your old equipment will work because of "driver issues".

A "driver" is a piece of software that lets your computer work with the devices you have connected (outside or inside) the computer. Think of it like each part of the computer, or each device hooked up to it (like a printer, or a digital camera, etc.) talks a different language. The driver is like an interpreter that translates the language the device talks into the language Windows talks.

The same thing applies if you have a Mac -- it needs drivers to "talk" to printers and other devices. Without the right driver, the Mac has no idea how to talk to the printer, scanner, or whatever kind of device you might have hooked up to it. One big difference between Macs and Windows is that in a *lot* of cases (not all, but a lot) you don't need to jump through a lot of hoops to get a new device to work. You plug it in and it just works. But it still needs the driver for this to happen, it just is built in for most printers, mice, etc.

But back to Vista.

The drivers that used to work for Windows XP don't work for Vista, so every company out there that makes computer equipment has to make brand new drivers to work with Vista, and until they do, their equipment won't talk to Vista.

Now by the time I'm writing this (August of 2007), a LOT more drivers are available, unlike a few months ago when Vista first came out. But still, there are many thousands of devices that aren't "compatible" with Vista (in other words, there is no driver for them).

And the companies that make different computer parts and devices may not bother to ever write drivers for their older equipment -- even things just a couple of years old -- because this way they can sell you a new printer, or scanner, or whatever.

So even if you buy a new computer, the devices you had hooked up to it might not work anymore, and if you try to save money and just upgrade your current computer, parts inside the computer might not work right, or at all.

And if this happens, there's not a lot you can do about it.

I'll talk about the third reason I don't think you should get Vista in the third and final segment of this article.


Oh, and one last thing -- Mac users reading this, remember that if you have a Mac that was made in 2006 or later -- an "Intel Mac" of some kind -- you *can* run Windows too, and all of this information applies to a Mac running Windows just as much as any other computer running Windows.

But fortunately, most of you won't ever need to run Windows, so you can stick to the more familiar (not to mention safer and easier) Mac OS X that you're used to. But if you do have a need to run Windows, this is important to know.