Well, it's about time someone tried to quantify how much slower your computer will get under the latest version of Windows. After decades of promising a faster, more stable, and all-round better life with each new release, nobody believes the next version (expecially the next .0 version) will be any better.

Sounds Like a great marketing tool for Linux when users find out what Vista will do to their systems unless they drop some serious money on new hardware. Who needs it?

I am a current WXP and W2K user and before that I used NT4. In 1996/7 NT4 was compelling. Later, W2K was a nice upgrade. I don't see that I got much in WXP and Vista just looks like a complete pig. Same story with MS Office. I can still do everything I want to do in Office 97. Everything since has been more pain than gain.

I plan on taking a serious look at SUSE, and if there are still some Windows apps I need, I'll run them in a W2K guest on WMware.

Microsoft is working hard to make the PC a more "supportable" platform for games. A feature like this will allow game vendors to say "You must have a Vista performance score of X to play this game." This, combined with removal of the "capability bits" from DirectX 10, should substantially reduce the support costs for game publishers.

Windows Vista has a lot of improvements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/windows_vista

Yes, is a PC churn tool for sure, with some benefits for purchasing. Microsoft's well-noted bloatware is outpacing hardware development, it seems.

Bill Gates mocked the Google-backed MIT $100 laptop project on Wednesday, touting the $600 to $1000 Origami devices (read: OS sales) devices as the real deal.

Although Vista has been said to be a turning point for the desktop giant. We shall see soon enough.

But Novell's new next-gen Linux could be the answer for enterprises and SMBs looking to squeeze more out of their existing equipment for basic office chores.

Would be curious to hear how you go, oqmark, with your trial of the new distro and guest visits using software to boot Windows 2000. Let us all know, please.

Absolutely and it should go further, spec ratings done well could help consumers understand the true value of a system purchase. This could be extended further such as having a rating for the vendor's committed to providing routine BIOS and driver updates.

Unlikely vendors will take hold of this since it tends to lead the consumer toward more meaningful price/performance comparisons.

Too many whining people here. Please go away and stick with your old version of Windows or Linux or whatever...

Vista may have a lot of new or changed features but what makes it a compelling upgrade given the cost of the upgrade itself, the cost of additional hardware, and the pain involved? There's a lot of eye candy and multimedia stuff aimed at home users. The useful stuff is already available (e.g. reduced privileges--not new; they are just making it easier for regular users) or available from elsewhere for free (e.g. search features). Also, other OSes already have this stuff. New mail and Internet Explorer? Lost me to Firefox and Thunderbird quite some time ago and I don't see any reason to return. Might eventually jump to Evolution or Chandler depending on how they develop in the future. And A lot of the more interesting stuff like WinFS, Windows Command Shell, EFI got dropped. How many years have they spent working on this? Sounded cool when they first started talking about it but now it is close to release it looks bloated with junk and gutted of anything useful.

They jettisoned most of the OS features (WinFS, etc) in favor of More Eye Candy. I don't need eyecandy, I want a lean, mean computing machine. And now I'm supposed to upgrade my equipment to support it.

Linux is looking more and more interesting at this point. Not being a big gamer, there's not much I do on a machine I can't do with Linux apps.

I remember the good old days when the MSFT recommended platform involved a 486SX with 2MB of RAM, but we couldn't get Access or any software working with a decent load on anything less than a 486DX with 4MB of RAM, unless we inserted WAIT timeouts in the macros.

I just hope this isn't a fake measurement like that one. I'm still not planning on buying Windows Vista, and my boss who is looking at Dell laptops is trying to buy one now, since XP is stable on her laptop, and all the software she wants will run without problems on it, but if she waits for the Vista rollout she'll have to go through months of "fixing" applications instead.

I've personally given up. I have XP on my home laptop and just use OpenOffice since it works and doesn't require me to constantly upgrade it for things I don't want.

What they really need to do, is to make the tool availible BEFORE you install Vista.

It seems too many people have decided to rant and rave about MS and neglected to opine the question.

I for one think a rating system would be a large benefit to software developers, especially gaming, as mentioned earlier. But, if the rating system tool would allow us IT guys to tweak it for the SMB and enterprise, it would provide a useful tool during upgrade/re-deployment analysis.

I think that it is a great idea but it needs to be available before you purchase Vista so that the user can get information about their computer and whether Vista is bloatware or just keep running their current version of Windows as long as Bill will let them.

Tagging on to Sniper's comment, the tool ought to be independently available, much like MBSA. I, and others, should not have to buy a product that has a tool only to have the tool tell us, "Oh so sorry." By then, it's too late.

Rating systems mean nothing. Look how well the Terror Alert color rating system works (is today a Yellow day or an Orange day & is that good or bad). The MS rating system is just another way to confuse people about what they need. How about instead of telling them "Your system is a 500 out a possible 1000 points" they actually said something like "You may need a faster CPU and more memory" or "Your Hard disk does not have enough storage capacity". These kinds of statements actually tell them something about the computer they have, what and why they may want to upgrade. But that kind of information wouldn't be good for people who want to sell new PC to the uninformed.

I agree with the previously posted comment that the true value of this tool would be to enable evaluation of a system PRIOR to installation of Vista!

But if Apple (in particular Steve Jobs) would get its head out of its posterior and facilitate running Windows on the Mac as well as releasing OSX for the PC world, much of the issue would become moot, as it would indeed be a welcome opportunity for us to have a Windows file compatible UNIX & Windows on the SAME machine while also turning loose a user-friendly Windows alterative and potential Linix killer to the PC folks that actually has available and refined applications. Especially if Apple would assist VMWare in assuring compatibility. Hence Apple gains overall marketshare in the consumer and enterprise server realm and we gain a true UNIX-Windows bridge, and the world gains a true alternative to Windows on the PC without having to surrender either.

As a system builder, I see this as a much simpler way to break down a computer's performance, and to explain the bennifits of particular upgrades to some of my customers that are, shall we say, less than computer-savy.

"It seems too many people have decided to rant and rave about MS and neglected to opine the question."

There's plenty to rant about (N.B. I'm a Windows user). I don't think we need a performance rating to know that the majority of PCs won't run the new OS with its new GUI with acceptable perfomance. It's marketing and that's what they seem to be good at doing. They need to be good at it given the constant delays, gutting of features, and endless security holes in IE, etc. Microsoft has become old and bloated.

Suse looks more attractive every day.
http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/preview.html