Vista, First thoughts

[hc2995]

My parents finally got vista this morning, it came as the OS on the new PC they bought to replace the one that finally died (the one that was restarting and freezing, turns out that the on board graphics unit was bad, that went and it cause the motherboard to get fried) When they first got it i had to set it up (being that im the computer guy in the family lol) Vista is very sleek and new, its very complicated (not so much complicated but they moved a lot of stuff around and added a whole lot of things which, being that im brand new to it, is complicated to me) the only real downfall is that IE7 (the newest version) is broken on this machine (which dosent matter to me, i use Firefox but my parents are strange about stuff like this, and you can use any MS products that access the internet(they use IE to access the web 75% of the time))

So without delay heres how it stands up to me:

Visual: 9/10
Audio: 8/10
Boot time: 8/10 (Could be faster shutting down but booting up is fairly fast)
Compatibility with programs: 9/10 (Most programs need drivers for vista)
Ease of use: 5/10 (Maybe cause its new, but its complicated to me, or at leased on till i get used to it)
Overall: 8/10

Final Thoughts:

If you have XP i would stay with it for now; if you can, get a new PC with vista.
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Where have i been? School got heck-tick, had to move half way around the state, then back... and then i had to change jobs, so iv been away for a while :P

[AbyssUnderground]

I can't vote since there isnt a "Ill never buy it" option. It sucks so much I wouldnt waste my money on it. Its XP with a facelift, some nice new graphics and some f*****g anoying features to stop programs running if when you want it to. There is no advantage having vista over XP. At least XP works and is bug free.
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Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

[olly86]

I'll consider getting Vista once support for XP ends, if I haven't already moved to Linux; as it's slowly getting better.
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Olly

[hc2995]

Yea its like i said, if you have XP theres no rush to go buy vista right now, (There wil be some huge problem very soon, just wait and see) but if you get a PC with vista i would stay with it (Helps leanr the new featurs so when vista takes over as the windows OS it you will have some experiance in the operating system)

As for me, its just a time of wait ontill they have "Windows vista for dummies" up at the library :P
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Where have i been? School got heck-tick, had to move half way around the state, then back... and then i had to change jobs, so iv been away for a while :P

[Tom Chapman]

For one, the only things that need drivers are hardware or virtual hardware software lol..

Like XP, looks get old so to me it like downloading a new msstyle...

I don't see how anyone could not ever find anything they were looking for. Half the point of the new OS including increased security specifically around the Kernal!

Haha I rather like the way you expressed your anger towards it Andy! I did the same thing when it wouldn't let me activate RC1 anymore... -.-

I like XP for its simplicity.. I can't really say much about Vista, sorry Microsoft!

[madman1337]

the only thing that will ever truly get me to switch is dx10, but there aren't too many games that are written for it and there are not too many video cards that use dx10. Until then, its all XP and Linux in this house!

Anyways, WineHQ is supposed to come out with dx10 support whenever the next version of OpenGL comes out, and if its done well, I might not switch for a long time.

Too bad Microsoft is going to try and make people switch when they stop updating XP, and then it will become outdated like 95, 98, and ME. Good thing this won't happen for a while.
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[hc2995]

Well my school is normally on the cutting edge of technologies as with PC's and such, so on till vista is installed on the PC's at school, im not changing over (we still use IE 6, cause IE7 is still too new to be "Used in a labor intensive environment" lol)
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Where have i been? School got heck-tick, had to move half way around the state, then back... and then i had to change jobs, so iv been away for a while :P

[Beomage]

Some security settings were done ok, but their idea of security approaches one side of the problem - having more user alerts.

What I was hoping to see was the ability to set permissions per executable so that it, and it's child processes would have a limited read/write access to specified directories. That need not break programs if the os layer were able to handle delayed writes caused by a prompt awaiting user input to permit an install from putting files in your \windows\system32\ directory. While it may be irritating to say, right click and select folders to be accessible to write to for a setup file, at least you'd know that that game you're installing is trying to install starforce protection. Or that the sony cd binaries are attempting to write to your disk and drop their rootkit. Usernames work to a certain extent and this is probably logically equivalent to having one per binary run, but it seemed to be the simplest more secure way to do it with the ideas a few friends and I were kicking back.

As far as dx10 goes, it would be nice to have, but even vista would have to download it later, games will have a very well developed dx9 layer (probably needing shader 3.0), and opengl gurus will probably access features of the unified shader through assembly instead of the dx10 api, much like some demos from nvidia. Carmack did it before with the sm 3.0 path in doomIII.

I'm REALLY dying to see 64 bit take off first. I'd probably switch once that gets more play. Going 64 bit is useless as far as performance goes unless you're using specific CAD packages that actually use some new optimized instructions, but the big benefit i see is more memory. Right now, my laptop, and both desktops run 2GB each. It's not enough. I got webservers, my work, my play, my virtual machines, all taking up memory. At work, having multiple windows open to sql connections, loads of clipboard usage for screenshots, large trace files etc, i actually run out of memory sometimes (2GB there too).
Now 32 bit CAN access 4GB normally, but windows uses memory mapped io - if you have a device, say a new 8800gts - the 640MB of the 8800gts is mapped to a portion of that 4gb of addressable space, reducing the total addressable main memory to 3GB, 384MB (and this is after patches that fix numerous other boundary errors).
Couple versions of windows server use PAE which can access up to 32GB, but it's not something you'd be running on a home system.

Other thing I'm sad they dropped is monad, the new "super" shell. It's actually quite powerful, and something they should have kept as a default.

[Tom Chapman]

I hardly ever have any security problems anyway...

At school we made the move to XP early last year from 2000 Pro.

Both work great..

I cam back this year to see them promoting Firefox.. I was appauled. (Joking! :D) IE7 is still accesible though..

We also promote Open Office but have access to Office 2000.

[hubson]

I'm not moving over til I upgrade my computer, then I will be keeping this one as just a webserver and using the new on as my personal one, with vista home premium on...
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[pkSML]

Coming from a person who thought Windows 95 was taking over the computer, I don't want a new version of Windows.

I was forced to get Win95 for a sound card driver. They took the native DOS environment away and replaced it with a command prompt. Didn't like that, but got used to it.

Didn't want XP, but found out it was faster and more stable. Took awhile to get used to. Absolutely dislike the activation requirement and I can't just boot up my existing XP installation in another computer.

Vista has tightened Microsoft's clamp on its products. I don't plan to upgrade at all. It might eventually be a forced switch, but I really like XP now.
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Stephen
Need a LitlURL?

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[jibbajabba]

i'm very much happy on xp home but will probably upgrade to vista eventually.
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http://www.jibba-jabba.net | http://www.mosthauntedforum.com

[cmxflash]

I'm probably going to buy (yes, buy) Vista Ultimate in about one year when it's stable enough and most programs has added support for it.

Right now I'm running WinXP Professional and Debian (with KDE, and Beryl).

[TCG503]

Unfortunately I can't vote as there isn't a "Never" opetion.

I hate vista with a passion.

[abyssisthebest]

I got a free windows vista express upgrade free with my laptop, I have just reinstalled windows xp back on to it, after using vista for around a month.

My reasons... Lack of drivers, slow boot, and bsods using apps that worked fine on xp (iTunes)

When it has been out longer, I may think about installing it again, but for the time being I am more than happy with windows xp.
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My online Portfolio

[Tom Chapman]

[Moxxnixx]

About 2 months ago, I got a new Acer Aspire laptop that came with Vista Home Premium.
This laptop has a 1.8 GHz Pentium dual core processor, 1 gig of ram and a 120 gig HDD.

Originally, I was going to reformat it and put WinXP Pro on it, but I decided to try Vista out
and get familiar with it since I didn't need the laptop for anything important.

At first, I had a few minutes of aggravation when I couldn't get it to recognize my other
comps on my wireless network. Other than that, I haven't had any problems with it at all.
It runs like a dream.

[Tom Chapman]

[Moxxnixx]

[rrinc]

I'm going to avoid vista for as long as I can. And I'm definitely not installing it on my server.

Also, something to consider in maybe a few months when its improved quite a bit is ReactOS.
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-Blake | New Server :D
SaveTheInternet
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[Tom Chapman]

[AbyssUnderground]

[TomBullock]

I have Vista on my personal computer and XP for my web server. Eventually Vista will just be dominant like XP. Not many people liked XP when 98 was dominant, but it just takes over eventually.

[rrinc]

[aprelium]

[rrinc]

True, but its come a long way. They've got a new shell in the works with XP-theme compatibility I believe, and mainly they're working on driver compatibility.
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-Blake | New Server :D
SaveTheInternet
Soy hispanohablante. Puedes contactarme por mensajes privados.