by Ryan Budiman

Created on: January 13, 2009

Microsoft's Windows OSes (including XP, sorry!) were long considered unofficially as 'an expensive OS with no speciality at all',unlike Mac OS X or even some favorite Linux distros, which boasts an impressive array of features for home or business servers, excellent graphical user interface, and a virus-free system. Eventhough Windows, especially XP, dominates the OS market nowdays, Microsoft is actually still lagging behind Apple and Linux; but fortunately (or unfortunately for some Linux geeks) Bill Gates is catching up fast with the release of Windows Vista. Now let's see what Vista has that poses a threat to Mac and Linux.

First thing in the list; Vista has revamped the boring XP interface and transformed it into an 'eye candy'. The desktop now features transparent Aero glass windows, gadgets that show the latest news, a bigger, high-resolution icons, and many new stunning wallpapers. The new GUI, I dare to say, is one of most compelling reason for casual users to upgrade to Vista. Though Vista hasn't beat Mac OS X on GUI, the new interface is positively appealed by most Vista users.

Now for those who seeks performance improvements, Vista also includes 'Transactional NTFS' that allows you to roll back any changes you made to the system,'I/O Cancellation' to cancel all buggy request for certain input or output,'Realibility Monitor' which, as the name suggest, monitors your system for any instability,'Service Recovery', a 'restart policy' that allows restarting some system-critical Windows service without a reboot if for some reason they had stopped working, and certainly more performance and diagnostic tools that ever.

And best of all, Windows Vista is packed with some of the most bleeding-edge technologies (don't worry though, it wouldn't cut). DirectX 10 and the new Windows Service Hardening are two examples of that. Microsoft has constructed Vista in such a way that it is able to display the best graphics (equal to or even better than Mac OS X in some games, such as the Microsoft Flight Simulator X), and able to compete with Debian or Red Hat for business and server computing. Microsoft even released one edition of Vista, the Ultimate edition, that contains all the technologies you'll ever need, from gaming to the this-is-not-kidding serious data processing.

Overally, though Microsoft did make some mistakes with some of its past OS, Windows Vista is definitely 'the big bet on the company's move', as Bill Gates proclaimed before Vista was released. Even for those Linux geeks, the new, revamped Windows Vista OS is worth a shot.

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