Microsoft VISTA for Nonprofits: Our Take February 7, 2007

In 1994 I started a computer business where we built and sold PCs, taught classes, and serviced computers. Most were running Windows 3.1.

It was hell.

Windows 3.1 was unstable, and 3.11 was only slightly better. I longingly looked forward to the day when I didn't have to edit system files to squeeze performance out of wheezing PCs with low amounts of RAM and low ability to effectively use more even it it were affordable.

Things are different these days. Windows XP--after all of the updates are applied--is stable. I'm still running it on all my systems, and have no plans to upgrade to Vista. Security is supposed to be a big feature, but security software is almost free (TrendMicro has a free tool for viurus scans), and I don't look at Microsoft as the company to provide its own security, given their track record.

They've also never won me back as a loyal customer after their censorship of Chinese citizens, acting in concert with the Chinese communist/totalitarian government to deny freedom of speech and other hints of democracy to the Chinese.  So I'm not inclined to pay for much of anything from Microsoft these days anyway.

But from a purely technical perspective, for you to be happy with Vista, you can look forward to replacing or upgrading some or all of your computers, a substantial learning curve expense (they've changed some of the metaphors and menuing, which are not consistent across applications), and whatever software upgrades you'll need, which might cost a few bucks.

GiftWorks runs on Vista and you don't have to pay for it to run on it. We did the work this past Fall and if you had GiftWorks before November, you got an automatic update from us with no charge. To me--a guy who buys the latest and greatest of just about everything, usually before anyone I know--XP is stable enough, performs well enough, and doesn't require additional investment.

And the new Office has some cool features, but you'll need to buy another Dummies book to learn some of them, and the navigation is new and not much of an advance. The "ribbon" toolbar adds a minor amount of persistent context, but it's not usage-based context, and it's just as busy and over-feature-ridden as the most recent Office. The new menu titles are kind of like $20,000 Pyramid: "pictures, tables, cover pages, date and time, smartart...Things you can insert!" I don't think "insert" when I think of creating a cover page, which means I have to click on every menu title to find it.

One thing I do like about the new Office is the amount and quality of shapes for adding graphical elements to documents. But shapes alone are not worth the upgrade. If you really want to play with shapes, take a look at SmartDraw, or check out what Corel has over at Corel.com. Both offer inexpensive graphics programs for charting and other shape-intensive stuff.

So XP for me for the time being. And you might ask "what about Mac or Linux?" Great question. We're thinking about it, but it's not likely to happen in the next 12 months. Dave did a fantastic job at ChiliSoft porting that software over to LInux, but GiftWorks is very much a Windows application. We're talking with Apple about a port, but unless we take on new investment or get help from Apple, it's unlikely we'll be there soon. But we're definitely exploring it. What do you think?

UPDATE: VISTA RESOURCES
TechSoup VISTA FAQ
PC World Review
TechSoup Discussion of VISTA
PC Magazine Vista Center

Comments

Wait at least a year or for Service Pack 1 before using Vista for any mission critical apps. I use XP for a process control computer. I tested Vista. Big mess!

I hope you will aim toward Linux compatibility! This kind of software is important to my community, and so is GNU/Linux... thanks, Sr. Dorothy