Monday Musings: Keeping up with the Joneses, Part 2

So this week we’ll look at upgrading your Operating System, touching on the hardware aspect.  I’m linking the two together as most new computer purchases come with the Operating System (O/S) du jour.

So why would you want to upgrade the O/S?  Well firstly, you be forced to; if you buy a whole new PC, it may come with the latest O/S, forcing you into the upgrade.  Secondly, if the O/S is a poor performer you may wish to upgrade to it’s replacement.  Take Windows Vista for example, which succeeded in ambition and featured some really clever innovations, but suffered in execution.  To go from Windows Vista to Window 7 is a simple process, one that can massively improve the “user experience” as marketing types would call it.   Thirdly, improvements in the O/S often yield improvements in the software that sits on top meaning you can do more with your computer.  Likewise, a new O/S is often required to take advantage of innovations in hardware – for example, to the most from SSDs (Solid-State-Disks), and to use 64-bit computing requires a suitable O/S (I’ll elaborate next week).  Lastly, consider how your use of the computer has changed over the years.  The computer has gone from being a basic computational device, to a business tool, to a gaming console, media hub – often all at the same time.  Not bad going for a glorified calculator!  As time goes on and the computing world innovates, the requirements for raw computational power increase, meaning by the time a PC is three years old it will be feeling the strain.  This leads us neatly onto the hardware…

That’s it for this Monday (just). If you are thinking of upgrading your PC or laptop, contact us on 01296 399 237 or at sales@agile-it.net