Why Upgrade to Vista?

	Get Up-to-Date, Painlessly

Here's a hot Saturday night: Cancel the dinner reservations and stay home to upgrade the PC to Windows Vista. Yes, that's how I spent my weekend. And it wasn't awful, really.

Not only that, but I recommend that if you are considering a new computer -- assuming you are doing normal personal and small-business tasks on a relatively late-model machine -- upgrading is the way to go.

Why buy a new PC unless you have to?

The upgrade calculus -- in the Windows world, at least -- used to be that you bought a new machine whenever a new operating system came to market. Sure, I could run Windows XP on my Windows 2000 Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), but I would be nuts to actually try.

Upgrades were harrowing affairs in which existing software was rendered useless, data was lost and peripherals were simply unusable.

Why bother? Between the cost of the new Windows software and the RAM and video cards usually needed to run that software -- not to mention all the attendant hassles -- you were better off biting the bullet and buying a machine built for the new OS.

No more. Between the falling cost of processors and the aggressive new economics of the computer business, there is less reason than ever to upgrade machines along with software. Most computers will work just fine. And with the improvements in technology, upgrading an operating system is pretty much just plug and play.

It's very chic right now to bash Vista as a pointless upgrade. But I have been testing it for well over six months, and clearly, Vista offers a better user interface than XP. It provides better security, and it's easier to install software and peripherals.

With 500 million people using Windows worldwide, and XP quickly going down the Microsoft (MSFT) road of forced obsolescence, Vista is the future.

Any Mac users running Windows should consider an upgrade as well -- not only is Vista safer, the user interface should be a snap for Apple (AAPL) fans. It's no secret that Vista essentially apes most of the Mac OS.

Mac users just need to make sure their machines have enough processing power and memory to meet Vista requirements. (Big note: Stay away from dual-boot modes that run both Apple OS and Microsoft Vista at the same time, as it's almost certain to be slow. Instead, do a clean boot in one OS, and results should be excellent.)