29 Reasons to Not Get Vista

Microsoft Windows Vista hits (assaults) consumers on 30 January 2007. Starting with New Years Day that gives you twenty nine days to think about the big mistake you're about to make.

Every day of January 2007 until Microsoft Windows Vista is released you can read yet another good reason why it's not a good idea to get it.

27 January 2007 Reason #27: There are far better uses for $400.

'I can get a whole PC for $400. From my experience with the Vista betas, they're slow and sluggish and cause too many problems. I'll pass - and will use XP till the cows come home, then switch to something better - Mac or Linux. Even at $150 I won't buy Vista', wrote one blogger online.

He's not exactly alone. Eyad Nasser gives a good rundown on the pros and cons from a user perspective.

'I have been monitoring Vista and investigating all of its aspects ever since the early days of Longhorn and I must say I am anything but pleased', writes Nasser.

'There's a lot of change in this Windows release, some of it for the better, some of it comes at your expense sometimes for no benefit at all to you. Windows Vista is more demanding hardware wise and sometimes the extra cost is not justified from your point of view.'

'Resources are used to protect premium content (Blu-ray or Super Audio CDs for example). This is what Microsoft consider premium content - and you therefore need to buy extra hardware to protect that content - from you.'

'Also, not all devices on the network are working as they should, and the reason for that is that Windows networking has changed, and the change is possibly (but without making any assumption of probability) driven by the Microsoft urge to render Linux and other operating systems incompatible and less useful, but as a result my network storage does not work properly anymore especially when password protected.'

'Windows Vista is not cheap, and to buy it without having hardware to support it is an awful waste of money. In fact you should not buy it if you have only the minimum requirements to run it for there will be not enough system resources to run other programs.'

That $400 will almost get you a 'Mac mini' - a biscuit tin sized computer you hook your screen, keyboard, and mouse to. It already has an operating system on it. With no worm outbreaks, no need for antivirus or anti-spyware - none of that. And the operating system there - OS X - is generally considered the far and away best operating system there is for the desktop today.

Or you could forego a new purchase altogether and take the plunge into Mark Shuttleworth's Ubuntu - the 'totally' free operating system you don't even have to pay shipping and handling for. Mark allocates $10 million per year to ship CDs with his Ubuntu operating system to your door free of charge - yours for the asking.

Or you could take a weekend holiday. Or a dinner at fancy restaurant. Perhaps two dinners. Or buy someone a nice present - reach out and touch someone.

And at the end of the day you can save the $400 too.