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My desktop PC that I use for software development has been taking longer and longer to boot recently. It got to the stage that I could start it, go downstairs to make a coffee, come back upstairs with the coffee, and drink it before I could do anything useful with Windows. (OK, so I *know* that there’s an argument that trying to do anything useful with Windows is an exercise in futility, but that’s not the point of this post….!)
The moment that I’d been dreading over recent months finally came, when I couldn’t stand this startup rubbish any longer. It was time to reinstall my operating system!!!
Now, since I was currently running on Windows XP, the sensible argument would have been to re-install XP. In fact, I even gave serious consideration to installing Linux and using WINE to run my Windows apps, but decided that as long as my employer works with Microsoft applications, then I should be doing the same at home in order to maintain flexibility.
The only other option was one that I’d been avoiding for months. It was one that the techie in me cried “DON’T DO IT!!!”. It was the option that will no doubt pull in masses of criticism from the technically minded readers amongst you. It was Vista.
My justification eventually came down to the fact that as someone who makes a living out of understanding his client’s various computer environments, it’s only a matter of time before I’d be faced with Vista so I needed a level of familiarity. Also, my wife was about to buy a new laptop (since the power socket became ‘flaky’ on her old one) which would almost certainly come with Vista, and it would be down to me to support it!
To be fair, the upgrade went relatively smoothly and the system’s been running well ever since (about 2 weeks now). There have been some ‘quircks’, such as getting it to consistently auto-logon (it forgets my settings, for some reason!) and strange error messages (telling me I have no rights to rename a folder, when it actually meant that a file from that folder was in use!) but on the whole, it’s been great.
It now only remains to see what it’s like to live with over time…..
Watch this space! 
