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Chris Jones
Director of Computing Services, School of Architecture & Allied
Arts
jonesey@uoregon.edu
In the Spring 2002 edition of Computing News ( http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/spring2002/osx.html ), Patrick Chinn wrote an article entitled "Should You Upgrade to Mac OS X?" It contained a bit of useful advice that I don’t hear very often, and I’d like to expand on it in this article. His good advice was: "We recommend using your current operating system until it’s time to upgrade to a new computer."
Patrick’s advice will seem radical to people who believe that it is important to have the latest and greatest software on the market. They grasp at every shiny plaything that software makers dangle in front of them, often to their detriment. There are a few good reasons to upgrade software and many good reasons to wait. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but in ten years of helping people with computers, I have found these rules to be true almost all of the time.
Here are a few reasons to avoid upgrading your operating system or application software on a computer you currently own:
1. New software will slow down your computer
Almost every software upgrade
demands more memory and more of your computer’s
processing power. The visible symptom of these demands is sluggishness. Your
computer will be slow to perform your usual tasks. If you avoid upgrading software,
your computer will perform faster, and you should experience less frustration.
2. Avoid the "upgrade cascade"
After you shell out money to upgrade your software,
you often discover that you need more memory and upgrades to other programs
that are incompatible with the software you upgraded. The computer’s
newfound slowness will start you thinking about a new computer sooner than
you otherwise would have. Major operating system upgrades (e.g. Windows 98
to XP, or Mac OS 9 to OS X) are especially susceptible to the upgrade cascade,
often causing computer owners to have to upgrade many pieces of software or
download new drivers for peripherals.
3. New software is often buggy
I strongly urge my customers to wait a few months after a new operating system
or program comes out before they take the plunge and upgrade. Current software
development techniques are such that software is typically released before
all of the bugs have been squashed. Within the first few months after a program’s
release, the software maker usually releases "service packs" or "patches"
that fix bugs and improve performance. Let other people test new software
while you maintain your productivity.
4. It is easiest to make a transition all at once
If you wait to upgrade your operating system and software until you get a
new computer, you have to make just one transition every three or four
years, rather than a series of time-consuming transitions, one or more
each year. A computer is just a tool for most of us; the less time we spend
fiddling with it, the more time we have to do the work that the university
asks us to do.
5. Software costs money
This may seem obvious, but you can save money by staying off the upgrade
treadmill. By waiting to upgrade until you get a new computer, you can often
skip a version or two of the software you use, saving time and money in the
process.
Here are a couple of times when it is right to upgrade:
1. Sometimes you can’t do your job without an upgrade
If your co-workers or colleagues are sending you work-related documents that
you are unable to open, you may need an upgrade. Sometimes, you can ask your
colleagues to save their documents in a compatible format, but if this works
at all, it will work only for a while. Likewise, administrative units on campus
may require the use of certain programs or versions of programs in order to
interact with the UO’s administrative systems. If this is the case, you’ll
need to upgrade in order to continue doing your job.
2. Your current operating system is no longer supported
Computer operating system makers typically discontinue support for operating
systems after they have been on the market for about six or seven years.
If you bought a computer three years ago with a three-year-old operating
system on it, your operating system was probably fully mature and quite
stable, but it may soon lose support. If you plan to hold on to the computer
for another two or three years, an operating system upgrade (along with
a memory upgrade) is probably a good idea.