Do We Really Need Windows Vista?
by George Lunt
Microsoft has just released its Vista operating system. There are many other
analysts that will tell you that Vista requires new equipment and more memory to
run efficiently and that it may have problems using current XP hardware or
software. However, in this article I'll look at whether we actually need Vista,
and at the possible hidden features that can make Vista useful to abusive
governments and corporations.
The first question I want to ask is do we really need Vista? To answer this let
me go back seven years. Windows 2000 Professional was Microsoft's first operating
system that added enhanced networking technology to a desktop meant for the typical
user. Microsoft's other year 2000 operating system called the Millennium was never
very successful.
In late 2001 Microsoft decided to use the 2000 Professional foundation and
created a new system called Windows XP. They actually left off lot of the networking
stuff that came with 2000 Professional on the XP Home Edition. In order to get the
stuff they left off and some other things you had to buy XP Professional.
Here's the interesting thing. Most programs that run on XP also run on Windows
2000. Internet Explorer 7 (which still reportedly crashes a lot) can only run on
XP but Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox run very well on Windows 2000. Most
office and Internet software have no problem running on Windows 2000.
You must remember what the purpose of an operating system really is. Its main
purpose is to run user based software and Windows 2000 achieves this purpose
with most current Windows software.
What did Windows XP do to make it better than Windows 2000? They claim better
security with their Service Pack 2, but from the virus and spyware attacks that
I've seen, it doesn't look like that helped. Things like memory management, more
efficient use of modern processors, and better networking may be some of the
hidden XP enhancements but service packs could add this type of functionality to
Windows 2000.
There were many more things added to XP that can be described as bloat. They've
added the famous nagging dialogs that warn you when you don't have an antivirus
or your automatic updates are turned off.
By default, Microsoft doesn't think you're smart enough to look at the files in
Windows folders without destroying them, so they hide them and to view them you
have to click "Show the contents of this folder." File extensions are even
hidden by default.
The Control Panel was simplified because Microsoft figured that your brain was
too feeble to fathom the complexity of viewing it in the "Classic View." Lot of
the dialogs that Microsoft added are actually insults to your intelligence. Do
you really need the operating system telling you that "You have unused icons on your desktop?"
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