Many universities have begun to adopt laptop programs for all students. This basically means that all full-time student at the school either have the option or are required to purchase a specific laptop. This laptop will have all of the necessary academic software installed or made available to the student for their personal use.
Going to a school with a laptop program, I can tell you how great this works. Every student is endowed with a laptop computer. They can use it in class, take it to lab, take care of their homework or play games and surf the web. It’s an excellent asset to own when in college.
Now, there’s plenty more to discuss about laptop programs in general, but I’d like to make a few points against the use of Windows Vista (both in laptop programs and in general). Before I launch into these, I should note again that I am a student participating in a laptop program. The official supported operating system is Windows XP, but I’ve moved to Windows Vista and I can attest that it is difficult.
1. The “How Do I Use This” factor
Most students are now probably coming from Windows XP. This may begin to change as XP is not officially sanctioned for release on a new laptop (from major companies, anyways). So…you throw a student directly from XP into Vista. The tech-savvy could handle it, but it’s a big jump for most people. Ok, so you can argue that it’s a new OS anyways, what does it have to do with a university? Well maybe it doesn’t, but regardless, Windows decided to change nearly everything about the operating system look and feel. How about we try to solve the security and software problems, then slowly move users into a new look and feel…or offer a “classic” version that does more than take away the special effects. We know where things are in XP, why move them in Vista?
2. Specialty Software
Here’s the big point for a lot of schools. There’s a lot of specialty academic software out there. You’re talking CAD tools, mathematics programs, circuit simulators, etc. While things are getting better for academic software and Vista, a lot of programs are hardly ready. I’m in a course now where Windows Vista could not properly install a debugging tool because it renamed a .dll file in a system folder. I got it working because I found a new version of the software online that happened to be free (with a few acceptable limitations). But how many other applications won’t have that available? A school may own licenses for software it can’t even use. Big problem and big waste of money.
3. Resource Hog
One of the more minor issues, but still an issue. I have a capable laptop. It’s just over 3 years old and came pre-installed with 1GB of RAM and a 256 MB dedicated video card. That’s pretty good, especially to run XP. Problem is, Windows Vista can barely make it on that. I’m using 800 MB of memory just writing this with Firefox and Thunderbird running. I had to upgrade my RAM just so I could reasonably do things. Oh sure I could turn off the graphic effects, but that’s not a solution. I’ll also admit that new laptops are doing pretty well these days for not too much cash, but your operating system shouldn’t need to use that many resources.
4. Driver Issues
Finally, driver issues. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent installing crazy beta drivers for my nVidia card after installing Vista. Blame nVidia? Partially. Blame Microsoft? Mostly. If they’re going to release an operating system, they had better know it works with both old and new video cards. There’s also Creative, known for sound cards, who was slow to get on the ball with Vista. I’m sure there are other manufacturers out there who have poor or no Vista drivers ready either.
Now granted, if you read this post two or even just one year ago, it would be a lot longer. I admit that Vista is improving and support for all these things is getting better, but it’s not ready yet. Oh, let’s not forget that Windows 7 is in development, due for release in 2009 or 2010. We can only hope this is a better operating system – what Vista should have been.
