Growing an inspection company in today’s world requires a decent level of automation, hardware and software. More than 90% of the property inspectors on the globe today are using Microsoft Windows as their operating system of choice: due mainly to the general availability of business and report authoring software for the PC. Microsoft has been hard at work at the next generation of operating systems and will release it to the general at the end of January. This “new generation” operating system has been named Microsoft Windows Vista and comes in several flavors.

Inspectors will commonly ask me if they should upgrade to Windows Vista. This is a wonderful question because planning an operating system upgrade for a business is not something that should be over looked. Here is a candid response from someone who spends their days developing software for Vista. I have been using Windows Vista since the day it was released to developers (November 17, 2006) and have a great understanding of the costs and benefits of the upgrade.

In a nutshell: Windows Vista is simply not worth the heart ache for you to upgrade your current computer. If you have a brand new machine with an incredible amount of memory (RAM at 2GB or more) and you enjoy tinkering with your computer in your spare time by all means go purchase the upgrade and have fun. The new operating system is clean, it runs well, the system’s look and feel is improved and most importantly the protection of your computer is stronger. However, the average inspector using their laptop on a day-to-day basis is simply not going to receive the benefit from the cost. Cost always comes in two factors for computer users: the act of sliding your credit card for the cardboard box and DVD and often overlooked the amount of time you are going to spend getting your machine running again.

Simply put, do not spend any time or money grabbing Vista for your current PC!

If you are an electronic junkie and always need the latest technology keep reading…

So, how do you get Vista if you want it? By all means, get a new PC. If you want to run Vista, buy a PC with it already installed. Your experience will be better by 100%, let your hardware manufacture, like Dell, deal with the configuration challenges, the ups and downs of installing drivers for the hardware you did not even know was in your computer. Save yourself some time and sanity and if you desire to use Vista call up Dell and get a new PC with Vista already installed and running. If you want your experience to even be stronger wait until March to make your purchase. Delaying your purchase will allow Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers to see what unfolds in the initial months of public use.

Finally, if you do decide to make the plunge and upgrade to Vista make sure your hardware supports the updates. My team experienced a few hardware challenges during our upgrade and we have a small collection of useless hardware now. Do you have a SnapScan scanner from Fujitsu and want to use Vista? Bzzzzzzz, according to Fujitsu they are not even going to write a driver application for the scanner. Therefore, be ready to replace a few of your integral components. If running to Best Buy to buy new hardware to replace your working hardware does not appeal to you put your XP-based laptop back in your bag, smile at the fact you are not going to spend tonight trying to get your PC working for tomorrow, grab a beer and watch the ball game. You will be happy you did!

As Windows Vista becomes more of a mainstream operating system I will re-address this topic until then Windows XP up and good luck in the field!