You've probably heard about Vista , Microsoft's new operating system and may have even considered installing it on your office and home PCs. This article will let you know some of the features and issues necessary to making an informed decision.

Introducing Vista

As with any new Microsoft OS this product has been heavily anticipated and reviewed. The features that Microsoft has highlighted for Vista include a slick new graphical interface, improved search functionality, security and media integration. While some of these are useful in any setting we will focus on those useful in a law office environment.

Vista comes in four main versions, each with a different feature set. Selecting the right one will depend on your budget and requirements. The Business version would be appropriate for most office uses.

• Home Basic - Budget version without many of the graphical enhancements and media integration.
• Home Premium - Home version with media integration, document sharing and transparent desktop graphics.
• Business - Basic business version with most productivity enhancements, but not media integration, movie maker or games.
• Ultimate - All available features.

Main features for business

Vista's Aero interface can display windows in a stacked 3d Format

Vista 's front end includes some new graphical approaches to displaying information. Windows can be stacked, made transparent and even rotated in three dimensions, allowing multiple overlapping programs to be selected and reordered. The value of this may be dependent on your style of work and how many applications you use simultaneously.

With Vista , search has been made ubiquitous. Search buttons and features have been added throughout the Windows interface and Microsoft Office applications. By doing an initial complete scan and then updating the search index whenever changes are made Vista can perform desktop searches much faster than previous versions.

Improved security is touted as a major selling point in Vista , however until the product has been commonly adopted and tested by real world attacks, this will be difficult to assess.

Hardware Requirements - Vista comes with higher system requirements than any previous version of Windows. To run Vista in a business environment will require a new or recently purchased machine with a 1 gigahertz or faster processor, a minimum of 1 gigabyte of memory, a DVD ROM drive and a DirectX 9 compatible video card.

The DirectX 9 requirement for graphics card or onboard video is only needed to take advantage of the transparent windows feature, which is not implemented in the Home Basic version of Vista .

Recommended System Requirements for Vista

• 1Gigahertz or faster processor
• 1 gigabyte of RAM (system memory)
• Video card or onboard graphics adapter with 128 MB RAM and DirectX9 compatibility (needed for Aero interface)
• 40 gigabyte hard drive with 15 gigabytes free

Known Issues - Deciding whether to take the plunge for most users will be a matter of improved functionality versus potential problems.

Legacy Software - Vista has been known to have problems with pre-existing software, including some commonly used Microsoft Office applications.

Currently if a user has Outlook 2003 and upgrades to Outlook 2007 the new software will create a new PST file (Microsoft's mail database) and the existing one will be ignored. Installing an office 2003 application after installing an office 2007 application will corrupt the registry, causing the new search function to be disabled. Email clients that use pop3 accounts may require a manual registry edit.

Legacy Hardware - Vista is known to be more finicky about memory errors. Minor corruption in existing RAM that may not create problems with XP may cause Vista to crash. A number of hardware components and peripherals do not yet have Vista certified drivers.

Vista may be installed in a 64 bit mode to take advantage of increased processing power, however most external hardware, such as printers and scanners do not yet have drivers compatible with this install.

Pros - For most users the practical advantages of Vista are the improved search functionality, interface enhancements, connectivity options and gadgets which have the potential to extend the usefulness of Windows. The Business and Ultimate version include enhancements to document sharing, remote desktop access and network integration.

Cons - Vista requires more memory and hard drive space to install and run than previous Windows versions. A relatively new graphics adapter and CPU are needed to take advantage of all the new features in Vista .

Third party software may have issues until Vista tested and certified versions are available.

Conclusions - Vista has some compelling new features that should prove useful to power users, however early adoption comes with a potential price in troubleshooting and lost productivity. If you are purchasing a completely new system with Vista installed and Vista certified hardware the risk of problems will be minimal, however for users looking to convert existing systems confirming that your software and hardware will run with Vista before taking the plunge would be prudent.

Our thanks to Abacus webmaster Curt Clason, who wrote this article in the course of reviewing Vista for his own use.