Bits Windows Vista review

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/01..._review/1.html

[mmorgue]

When can we see some extensive "game" tests with Vista?

I remember the problems I had of going from win2k to xp and how most of my games would not work o the intial Xp. (or was it going to win2k..? I cant remember now..)

[chimaera]

I would guess going to Win2k - the only problem I ran into when migrating to XP (back in the days of XP RC1) were horrendously bad drivers for my Game Theatre XP soundcard (which in all fairness had a working driver out within a couple of days of XP going live)

Gamewise I ran into no problems at any time with anything I was playing back then.

As for Vista - well I want to upgrade to it - I was running RC1 and 2 for quite some time on my 3-year old desktop and really liked it (with the exception of wireless config which was just a total arse) but my new machine can't handle it as yet - theres no reliable driver support for most of my equipment (motherboard, graphics card, keyboard, mouse all have no drivers yet, although some may work with the XP drivers I guess)

[WilHarris]

Look for the gaming tests in just a few days.

[Mother-Goose]

Fantastic subjective review Wil, learnt alot more about it. 64-bit doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as I expected, give it a couple of months and there will be driver support for pretty much everything new I assume?

I know you're going to do some gaming tests, I would be interested to see how it works on a quad core system, or at last hear how it works on it, I know doing another set of quantative results is a chore.

Cheers again

[topher]

i downloaded a copy of vista last week and installed it on friday, it cant see my 8800 for some reason. Was this just the version i downloaded? I hope the proper copy's wont have this problem

[Mother-Goose]

topher, best to put that question in the "Tech Support" section

[Bursar]

Vista is OK, but because of the increase in point size, I get less text in my windows than I did under XP. It just makes the whole thing look like it's running at a slightly lower res than normal.

There are regular updates, I think I've had a notification every couple of days to say new downloads are available. This morning there was a Hold 'em Poker game listed in the Ultimate Extras section There was a patch that improved compatibility with quite a long list of applications.

So whilst there will undoubtedly be some teething troubles (such as no 64bit drivers for my TV card yet!), I'm sure within a couple of months drivers will be available for a large percentage of the hardware in use.

Edit -> Oh yeah, the security stuff is quite annoying if you're a more experienced user. I turned off the notification for when I delete files (but they still go to the recycle bin). Despite that, I hit shift-delete on a bunch of files, and I still have to click "Yes, I want to delete these files!" 3 times before it happens. I ended up turning it all off as I spent half the time fighting with the OS instead of getting anything done.

[Brooxy]

it cant see my 8800 for some reason

In the review it said that as of this very moment all nVidia cards had drivers cept the 8800 which is coming soon. I think

Good reveiw, been running vista for about a week now, and agree with everything thats been said

[1e8o]

I'll stay on my Windows XP for the moment, I think it's to expensive at this time...do you realy need the ultimate ?

[Fruitloaf]

£75 a steal for a user interface upgrade and performance downgrade? Whilst I appreciate the subjective review I would have hardly said that it even slightly convinced me to get on the Vista bandwagon any time soon.

Certainly I'm sure that the interface will make XP look outdated eventually (it looks pretty old to me already) the number of problems (driver support, performance degredation etc)... I think you should perhaps justify further the claim its worth it and then go out and buy it rather than using a review copy if you feel its worth that much just now.

[BioSniper]

Interesting view of Vista and in typical style a well written review which almost makes me want to switch.
The whole "The WOW starts now though" makes me think from having tried all the RC's, thats its more the "Wow they messed that up bad and moved all my options around to the point of unusability".

Obviously it's unfair to judge a product by it's beta clients but have they still kept things like the bars down the side of the explorer windows that you can't turn off (the thing that in previous iterations of windows would have most likely been the tree view)? Just that I'm the kind of person that even with XP strips it right back to basics and makes it look like win2k as I feel any other interface is rather un-intuative having lived with that style for the last 10 years (98 onwards) and then having a new interface forced upon you.

Eventually though I'm sure I along with many others will make the switch though probably after a service pack or if some game I REALLY want comes out with only DX10 support.

What I would like to see if a follow up article about stripping all the interface customisation off of Vista and see what it performs like then along with as other have asked for, gaming performance

[Emon]

I'm surprised to see that those tasks were slower. One of the major features of Aero is that it offloads screen rendering to the video card, allowing the CPU to be freed for more important tasks.

Have any tests been done with Aero on or off? I suspect it won't matter for things like audio or video encoding. It's really meant to increase UI responsiveness.

What worries me about such tests is the anti-MS zealots that will run around saying "SEE? VISTA IS A RESOURCE HOG!!!" and confuse the lesser-informed folks to the point where they think Vista isn't a good upgrade. I'm not saying it is, but people should be given the opportunity to make informed decisions without pundits screaming in their faces.

[kenco_uk]

I quite like the new navbar and the way you can pull down a menu and directly navigate to where you need to be. Well implemented. It is weird at first, as you expect to be able to 'go back' a directory when copying and pasting, for example; it does take a little getting used to, but for me it works great.

I'm undecided on the way the program menu's been overhauled. It's accessible, but I think there's something in me that prefers the old navigate through popup/slideout menus. In a way, the XP programs menu was more accessible, you could see everything you had (upon clicking the small double-down arrow) without having to scroll through a list. The Vista way is tidier and not cumbersome in the least, it just doesn't lay everything out in front of you as before.

I couldn't agree more with you about the rather deflated feeling of using XP when you're becoming 'at one' with Vista.

Very good review. I've even learnt some new words (hoopy frood/cronky!) - every day is an education on bit-tech!

edit - Biosniper brought something up in his post about the left-side menu thing on each explorer window. Is there a way to change what's displayed in there, like you could in XP? i.e. you could have Common Tasks, or a folder/drive tree listing. I'd prefer something like Common Tasks to be there, tbh, rather than the strange menu and directory listing that's there.

[flabber]

Something that has been on my mind for a while now...

Vista 64bit is less compatible with hardware/software. How much is "less"?
I mean, can I do anything of the following?
- Play games (like World of Warcraft, Rainbow Six Vegas and such)
- Do all USB-keyboards and mouses still work (regular keyboard and a Logitech G5)
- Is there any other software that simply doesn't work? (Like Avast, Skype and such)

The 64bit version does sound interesting, mostly because most people's system
is 64-bit already (at least the enthousiast's ones), and it seems to be a bit faster
and more reliable But I think it all comes down to which software/hardware will work on it.

[Almightyrastus]

I think I am going to hold off on this for a bit, not least for the reasoning that I want to have some decent hardware ready first.

I know there is the the 'who needs ultimate really?' thing which is highly understandable as most of us will probably never use the features in it just as most of us probably don't need the bits in XP pro.

The thing is that I suspect most of us will WANT ulitmate though simply due to the fact that we are who we are and we like the idea of having everything 'just in case', I know I am one of those people and if I have the money I will probably end up going for it but like I said I want to have decent hardware running it.

[Iago]

I have a question about security I haven't seen mentioned:

What about the User Account Control thingy? I've read people claiming it's a mayor pain in the derriere, people claiming is no big deal...in general, all the gamut of opinions going from one extreme to the other.

Is it too intrusive? Does it pop-up too often? Does it get better with time? I'd guess it should be the later...as you install less apps once everything is running fine, it shouldn't be too intrusive, but if it is so, I can see people running in Admin mode again. I can stand some password typing here and there (although I've read that the "Save Password" in IE doesn't work at all)...but if I have to enter it for most menial tasks, I think it will defeat the purpose of having people running in standard user mode.

Btw, great review, as always.

[BioSniper]

I know what you mean Almightyrastus about the want to have the features "just incase".
I for one wouldn't use anything other than Pro these dyas just becuase of some of the features are "nice to have". I do remember several times during my work on a tech support desk though that we would have to provide support for XP Home and to resolve a issue was actually easier on Pro due to the extras.
That and I find it feels like you are essentially paying for crippled software unless you get the full thing, and by the nature of most of the users here we will eventually want the extra freedom and options afforded by purchasing the more expensive versions.

In some respects however, I wish I was able to get it to test from something like the MSDNAA as I'd love to give it a proper test with a final release product.

[Veles]

The thing I was most looking forward to with Vista was the new file system, I was really disappointed to hear that had been scrapped, I'm going to be sticking with XP for a bit longer but I'll grab a copy of home premium eventually.

[r4tch3t]

Originally Posted by The article

bit-tech readers, we suspect, are rather less likely to have ropey old bits of legacy hardware kicking around

Well actually we would be more likely than others, just we won't be using it for Vista, we have them as file servers and the like. Usually running Linux.
As for the article, I found it to be informative. I already know a bit about it, but this cleared up a few things. For the start menu, I for one will like it as I clear most of the programs out of the start menu. I don't like clutter (at least on my computer)
I will be getting Ultimate 64bit OEM, due to 64bit being the future, and don;t want to have to upgrade. Everything (or nearly) that comes out from now on should come with 64bit drivers, so I think that will be less of a problem.
With the thing on the side, as long as I can make it like Samurize, I will like it. I haven't made the transition to wide screen, so when I do with Vista I won't see it as a real estate hog.
All in all, great review and looking forward to the games evaluation/testing.