(Long Island, NY) My friend Alan has been talking my ear off about the pending release of the new Microsoft Vista operating system. He’s one of those crazy people who would stand in line all night to buy the new Xbox system, so it’s no surprise that he wants to be the first guy on the block to get MS Vista. Poor Alan, like many of his fellows who want to be first with the new operating system, has a very short memory.
“Remember what happened when everybody upgraded to Windows 95?” I asked. He didn’t have a reply. Of course not, that was forever ago, in Madison Avenue time, he has completely forgotten all the hassles of changing to the new OS, and what’s worse, being first to do it.
“Alan, don’t you remember all those crummy patches and bug fixes that have come out with every new operating system? Remember what happened when you were first to upgrade to Windows 98? It was Windows 95 all over again.”
The sad part is, even as I am chastising poor Alan, I myself can’t remember what happened. I just remember his frustration, and weeping and gnashing of teeth over problems with hardware recognition, with getting printers to work, or any of the other nine million buggy little issues that came with those first edition packages of new operating systems.
I’ll be damned if I am going to be first on MS Vista, and Alan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was even more incredulous when I told him I’d wait at least a year, maybe two before updating to anything. He wondered why, and the almost hurt tone in his voice made me laugh.
“Alan, I’m not just a writer, you know that. I edit video and write music with my computers. Do you have any idea what some people are saying it’s going to take to keep up with Vista for multimedia applications? Some people are saying you will need as much as four GB of RAM just to make the programs function properly.”
I could tell he still didn’t get it.
“For people like me, it’s going to require a whole new computer with the very latest bells and whistles to make this thing work properly. In another two years or so, all the latest version of my multimedia editing software will probably require Vista to even function at all, let alone in any optimal way.”
A new computer, new software upgrades and patches, more money flying out the door. Folks, a poor writer doesn’t have that kind of cash to fork over to Microsoft. No way. Especially when all the equipment I currently have is working just fine without Vista, thank you very much. That is not going to change any time soon.
“Alan, you go right ahead and be first. Have a great time. After you get it all installed, and there’s some kind of hideous bug that doesn’t recognize your right to file share unless you are hooked up to a LAN, or your printer starts spewing out gibberish in ancient Sumerian, I am going to have a hearty laugh at your expense.”
Why?
“Because I told you so.”
Folks, when it comes to computers, never be first. Not even first in your family. Let somebody else experience the headaches, the frustration, the urge to throw your laptop from the 5th floor balcony onto a row of parked cars. After they get all their problems solved and everybody knows just what they did wrong—and how to fix it—you can come breezing in with your upgrades, and it will be smooth sailing.
Why be Microsoft’s guinea pig?
