The introduction of Vista has been very different to that of XP. The older operating system was so much better than Windows 98, it was hard to justify not upgrading for any other reason than unsupported hardware.

Vista does have more features than XP and they are genuinely useful. I'm particularly pleased with the parental controls that are now included. But are they really worth the money of upgrading? Is is possible to get the same effect with third party software and Windows XP?

In fact the situation is even more murky because many of the 'new' features in Vista are not really new but old features that have been given an interface suitable for ordinary users.

Take the restrictions for when users can log onto the computer. I remember reading about this option in NT4. That's the precursor to Windows 2000 that was the precursor to Windows XP! Quite why it has taken this long is a bit of a mystery. I'm sure I'd be told it was more complicated than that.

I'll be taking a look at some of the new features in Vista and whether or not they can be replaced with free or cheap alternatives.