Let Vista be the judge of your PC's performance

ZDNet points out that the rating system needs to grow with computer hardware, otherwise all new PCs will wind up being 5s after a
year if even that long. On the other hand, the system needs to be somewhat relative to the PC because a user may feel slighted if
his onetime 5 is a 3 two months later. Microsoft has not commented on how exactly the system will handle these issues, but it is
readying a second tool to help.

Behold the Windows Upgrade Advisor: the tool that tells you when and how you can upgrade your system to increase its performance. By
looking at your system's current configuration, the tool will suggest ways to make the operating system run faster. While not widely
popular, a similar tool with the same name is available for Windows XP. Wouldn't it be nice if the Performance Rating tool was
available to install on XP, but could rate your system for Vista? I'd like to know how my system will really run on Vista before I
go through the painful upgrade process.

Why don't you tell us what sort of machines we should buy before they have Vista installed on them? That way, we wouldn't be
humiliated by finding we'd bought a pup after the fact.

Of course, if retailers are going to advertise systems in their offline or online stores as having poor scores or good scores, that
would help the poor benighted buyer to avoid any potential humiliation and buy a superior PC.