Goodbye XP, hello Vista

Judging by the number emails the PCW office has been receiving, it’s clear that many of our readers have questions about Vista.

Should we switch? What are the big advantages? How do we manage migration in a business environment?

Whatever you decide, one thing’s clear – before you rush into installing Vista, you ought to draw up a migration plan.

Obviously, Vista has ease-of-use advantages compared with XP, as well as better built-in security mechanisms and up-to-date functionality.

This means that XP users can upgrade with a clear conscience. In spite of this, we recommend that you wait at least a few weeks before you switch.

Dual boot first
We went through the full rigmarole of installation to see what you can expect if you don’t get Vista with a new PC. The best, and the most secure, solution is to run Windows XP and Vista on a dual-boot system. This will allow you to try out the new operating system without disturbing the existing one. The only requirement is that you have a free NTFS partition with at least 15GB of free space.

If you don’t want to install Vista onto a production machine right away, you can run it using a virtual machine (see section entitled Vista on a virtual machine).

It is, of course, possible to update your existing XP installation to Vista, but our tests showed that this can cause problems, some of them fairly serious. The applications most affected are those that work close to system level, such as firewalls and virus scanners, and they can cause Windows Vista to crash. In some cases the incompatibilities can be so severe that Vista dies after your computer blue-screens.

Our testers found another stumbling block when they went to export files using Vista’s Windows Easy Transfer tool. The export process only succeeds if you restrain its enthusiasm. If you follow Vista’s suggestions it will copy huge numbers of irrelevant files to the new system, leaving erroneous links and programs that don’t work.

Moving your data to Vista
Microsoft has decided to help users make the switch by including a tool for moving data. If you’re switching to new hardware at home, or on a small-business network, you must first install Vista on the new computers and then start the data transfer from the XP system.

The Windows Easy Transfer tool copies, among other things, user accounts, files, folders, and program settings as well as email settings, contacts and messages. However, you will get the best results if you copy just those elements that are essential.

If you decide to copy all the data from the C: drive, it could result in incorrect Desktop links, non-functioning programs and user folders that end up containing a mish-mash of XP and Vista files.

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