Many people are now thinking about upgrading to vista. If you are in this position, you may not have considered the alternatives. Vista is Microsoft’s big new operating system. They advertise the enhanced security, the Windows Aero Experience and other new features like live thumbnails and Flip 3D. These all give Vista the look and feel that makes you want to upgrade, but other operating systems can offer you a similar experience, without the hassle of upgrading your software and hardware. These videos will show you what I mean. (NOTE: The guy in the first video is being sarcastic.)

You may, or may not, know that Windows Vista comes in several versions, ranging from Home Basic to Ultimate. Windows Vista Home Basic does not include translucent windows or Flip 3D, along with lots of other new features. Actually, depending on what you use your computer for, you may lose things when upgrading from Windows XP MCE to Windows Vista Home Basic (e.g. Remote Desktop Connection and the Media Center all together!). So, you might think that you can just upgrade to a better version of Vista. And you can, but have you seen the price. Vista doesn’t come cheap! And another downside is, the better the version of Vista, the more powerful your PC will need to be. Vista is a very demanding OS! However, if your lucky enough to already own a PC, capable of running Windows Vista. Then you could use Microsoft Virtual PC to run it along side XP or, Dual boot XP (or what other version of Windows you have installed) and Vista. Get someone who knows how , to install Vista as a second OS on your PC. These options should work providing your version of Vista is NOT and upgrade.

In my opinion, there are only two competitors that leave every other OS standing behind. Mac OS X Leopard and Linux Ubuntu. I don’t actually own any of the three operating systems I have mentioned but I’ve read plenty about them and watched hours of YouTube Videos. If your interested in Leopard, read on. Like Vista, leopard will also work out quite expensive because you will need to buy a mac to use it on. Macs are computers from Apple (the company that made your iPod) and are available from Apple.com/uk. They look amazing! The most popular kind of Mac is called and iMac. The whole computer is built into the monitor, which is a huge Apple Cinema Display. They start at £799.99 and become more expensive the more ram and hard disk space you pack it with.

Mac’s come in a laptop form as well. MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s. They run exactly the same Operating System -- Mac OS X Leopard! If you find that these are still too expensive, then why not consider a Mac mini. They start from just £399.99 and are small enough to balance in one hand. Along with the Mac Pro (which is far too dear -- over £1000), they are the only mac’s which do not ship with a screen as standard. The idea being the you use your old one from your PC. You can also use your PC Peripherals (i.e. your mouse, keyboard, speakers, External HDD’s and more). Apple call this feature ‘BYODKM’ -- Bring your own Display Keyboard and mouse -- or you could buy new ones. When configuring your Mac Mini (choosing how much ram, processor speed, hard disk space, etc…) you can choose to purchase an apple keyboard and mighty mouse. These are pricey but will go perfectly with your mac. Mac Minis come with 80GB HDD’s and 1GB of Ram but you can have more if you like.They have built in wireless networking and bluetooth. Again they ship with Leopard. All Macs also come with Ilife. A software package for making movies, editing photos, recording songs, etc.

If you are reading this and are thinking ‘well this is a waste of time, I already bought Vista’, then you may be happy to know that Mac’s can run Windows too! It’s a feature called Bootcamp. You choose which OS to boot when you turn on your mac. An alternative is a 3rd party program that allows you to run them at the same time, side by side. This is different to Microsoft Virtual PC for 2 reasons:

1) Virtual PC doesn’t work! (You need to know exactly what your doing to run another OS with it
2) It will not run Mac OS X! Notice the letters ‘PC’! Microsoft Virtual PC is designed to run other versions of Windows.

PC World tested Vista on all of their laptops and the one that it worked best on was a MacBook!

If you are very short on money, then you could look into getting Ubuntu. It’s Free! You can download this operating system from ubuntu.com. I don’t know much about this Os so I suggest taking a trip to the website to learn more.

I hope this article has given you some alternatives to Windows Vista. Remember, you can own as many as operating systems as you like. One computer doesn’t always mean one Operating System.

If you would like to purchase either Windows Vista or Mac OS X, then you can find them on Amazon!

Tags: alternatives, beware, dont, Linux, mac, os x, upgrading, Vista

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