PC Doctor+ Guide 17 Upgrading Windows

Shall I Upgrade?

A common issue for user's occurs each time that Microsoft launch a new version of Windows. The issue being," shall I upgrade?" Over the years we've seen a large number of new Windows versions. In fact it's surprising just how many there have been.

• Windows 2
• Windows 3
• Windows 3.1
• Windows for Workgroups
• Windows 95
• Windows 95b
• Windows 98
• Windows 98 Second Edition
• Window ME
• Windows XP Home

That's 10 versions aimed at the home market - not including the more network orientated Windows NT, 2000 and XP Pro. Of course, there will always be some people who simply have to have the latest release. Imagine though, the amount of money involved if a user upgraded every time a new version was released.

Few of the above releases represented a step change in functionality or reliability. Only the move from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 and the move from Windows ME to windows XP could be viewed in this way. The rest were little more than consolidations of service packs combined with the newest version of Internet Explorer. For example, anyone installing the service pack for Windows 95 together with the free Internet Explorer 4 would be hard pushed to differentiate their updated Windows from Windows 98 - and it would have cost nothing.

The number of releases of Windows does allow us to decide what the best approach should be to new releases s they appear and our advice would be as follows:

• If you are buying a new PC then certainly make sure that it has the latest Windows version installed.
• If you already have a PC and are tempted to upgrade to a newer version of Windows then at least wait until the first Service Pack is released. The first Service Pack generally incorporates fixes for most of the bugs that were discovered belatedly in the new version.
• If you're happy with your PC as it is then don't feel pressured into upgrading Windows. Instead why not smile at all the people who rushed out to buy Windows XP only to find that their modems and sound cards no longer worked because the new XP drivers were not yet available.