Review of Vista Home Basic

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A few months ago I purchased a new computer for the purpose of studying for the Microsoft Desktop Technician certification (MCDST). The computer came loaded with the new Vista, GREAT! I thought, this is just what I need, now all I need is to buy the newest version of MSN Office and I'm set! After having used this garbage code for several months now, here's what I've come up with. I don't need to waste any more time and money on Microsoft products. I won't be buying the new Office suite and I won't be paying for the MSN cert unless some one actually pays me to study for it. Now here's why ... If you are brand new to computers (a newbie), Vista is fine but most people that have wanted to use a computer already have one at this time. However, if you are currently using Windows XP or an older version of the Windows operating system, you may want to rethink "upgrading" to Windows Vista. In my experience, it doesn't really crash any more often than any other version of Windows, however, many of the programs I like to use are NOT compatable with the new Vista. It has the same old problems every version of Windows has had in the past, namely that MSN is in such a hurry to make profit that they are willing to sacrifice quality. This is kind of funny since MSN held back the release of Vista to "fix the bugs" and yet it's still loaded with bugs. Like all versions of Windows, Vista loads many things into memory on start up that most users don't use or need, it's a memory hog. You can eliminate these problems but it's not easy and most end users simply can't do it, it really takes a technician to speed the thing up. Microsoft has always had the extreme tendency to believe end users want little animations instead of efficient quality programming. If you have already decided to purchase Vista, I recommend the Premium version instead of the Home Basic version that I bought. I have not had experience with the Premium version but I have been told it has more driver support for networking. Even if you don't currently have a LAN (local area network), you may want one in the near future and it will better to have your computer ready to set up a router. I've had great difficulty setting up my LAN with Vista Home Basic version and I'm a trained technician. I had to reconfigure my LAN to accomadate Vista and use other third party programs to get my older systems online. I had a hacker successfully bypass both Vista's firewall, as well as, Norton's firewall (the Norton virus/ firewall suite came loaded on this computer) and I felt the need to find a newer, better firewall. I found a third party program called Vista Firewall Control that seems to fill the bill. It's very intuitive and easy to use but doesn't give many options and doesn't seem to work well with peer to peer software, even when given permission. I think I may have finally worked out why MSN leaves so many exploits and flaws in their programming code and it's not by shear accident or incompitence. I believe it's actually a very clever spyware strategy, although I'm sure MSN would deny that. Consider that when you update your Windows (regardless of what version) your system registry is being uploaded to Microsoft. Your system registry is a list of all your programs (what version, where you got it, when you installed it, how often you use it, etc), all your hardware and how you system is configured. I believe MSN correlates this data, creating a marketing prefence profile on end users which they use to blast you with ads from their corporate clients specifically tailored to your interests and more than likely also sells this information to their corporate clients. I know that other corporations (such as Yahoo, Google, Ask) use similiar such sneaky tactics with cookies and web beacons that slip right by spyware removal tools because they are "legitimate". Over all I would have to give Vista a failing grade and by extension MSN too. Save your money, stick with Windows XP or 98 for better speed on a new PC or better yet, buy a Macintosh.