Windows Why wont you use Vista?

Would you like to describe the DRM that you're talking about? I haven't encountered any of it.

 

Um, it costs a fair bit, and doesn't offer any real advantages that are useful to me? Sure, if anyone wants to give me the money, I'll buy it

 

HDCP is the only 'DRM' that I know of, but that'll only effect you if you're playing back high-def media (i.e. BR or HD-DVD) in which it requires an HDCP-compliant monitor. Other than that, it has any of the usual DRM that any other OS has.

It costs a pretty penny and it doesn't offer anything visually versus performance gaming-wise for me (DX10, meh...I like my framerates higher TBH) over XP ATM. We'll see how things pan out with SP1.

 

I'de like to stop you there for a min if i may. Vista is cheaper than XP. Granted thats Vista Home Basic compared to XP Home, although, Vista Business is cheaper than XP Pro, so really, XP is more expensive.
Also, i would like to go back to the guy who listed some of the Windows XP/Vista versions, as he missed a few.
XP had some versions that were released without media stuff, and i think that was because of the EU. I'm not sure if thats the same with Vista yet or not, will have a probe around.

Sam

 

@Tyinsar,
I separated them as this is how you buy them.
When you buy a retail copy of Windows Ultimate, it comes with both 32 and 64-bit. As for Home Premium and Business, you can get the 64-bit disk for free from Microsoft.com.

If you start eliminating OS, like you just said with WinXP. Then the same can be done with Vista.
Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. Pick.

Home Premium you have all the MS software on it, and Media center, and Ultimate you have the XP Pro STYLE of features, and backuping and bit-locking encryption system, and little Extras, as well as Home Premium stuff.

 

Two reasons:
OS X is far superior
There's some screw issue that it causes with my network that slows things way down and reduces accessibility

Nothing else really. Performance is fine for me, and I think there are a lot of big improvements over XP. But some stupid networking-related issues stop me from changing over my desktop (again - as I had to move it back to XP for this reason) machine which is likely to be effectively replaced by a Mac Pro in the near future anyways.

 

Firehed, Hmm I don't have such issue, could be driver related. Or OS bug, but I read something like networking improvements on SP1

 

I use it, I like it. It's definitely more intuitive than XP.

A lot of people complain that it's a resource hog, but for day-to-day use, it ran fine on my old system (Athlon XP 2600+, 1Gb RAM, Radeon 9800Pro) and runs beautifully on my new rig with games.

The only hardware problem I had was with my Pinnacle USBTV2 external TV card. It worked, sort of, but MCE didn't recognise it.
Even my 8 year old Canon FB630U Scanner worked brilliantly. I just used the XP drivers.

 

It just doesn't play nicely with proper network shares unless they're also on Vista machines. Right now, my fileserver is doing passworded shares from XP Pro, and I have to screw around with the network authentication type in order to get any access to the thing. I understand they care about security (you can fail and still care, but I won't go there), but it would take them exactly how long to roll out a patch in XP so its shares don't cause Vista to barf?

In honesty, I don't really care. My XP machine exists solely for a few odd games, and could for all intents and purposes stay off the network since I generally only play single player. My fileserver is going to get rolled into the Mac Pro once I get it and the remaining hardware will probably get sold off. Outside of work, that should be the last I have to deal with Windows at all as I've converted my father and brother over to the X side and at this point have to basically tell my mother to screw off with computer problems because I have better things to do.

 

I'll let these folks do the talking: www.badvista.org (FSF) Microsoft A/V content protection and WMP 11. NGSCB aka Palladium was one of the "features" that was cut from Vista and is now only partially implemented. Here is some info from a hardware pov: M$ paper, Trusted Computing Group, Peter Gutmann's excellent paper, and Ross Anderson's Famous FAQ. Don't forget about WGA (or LGA ) Hopefully those links and the links within them will be enough to satisfy your curiosity

 

My reason is because I don't have it, and I'm comfortable with XP.

I would like to switch to Vista, but it isn't worth the money for me, especially considering I haven't upgraded in 5 years and don't feel the need to either.
At work I refuse to switch because we finally got XP working on most people's computers. (Still need to upgrade a few Windows 2000 machines...)

 

Can't say I've experienced that, I can access Samba shares (and XP ones for that matter) fine.

Sorry, That wasn't very helpful.

 

Seems to me the question is inversely worded to how it ought to be. It's not

"Why wouldn't you use Vista?"

It's

"Why should I use Vista?"

Sure, I can run it, but that's not a reason to. It offers no benefits for me, particularly not in its broken, half-developed current state.
Also, I find the Vista issue a little oppressive, both officially and unofficially. Microsoft says,

And the average Vista user says,

I mean, what the hell's wrong with you? Are you on Bill Gates' payroll? Quit doing their aggressive marketing for them, they've got enough manpower to do it themselves. I'll ride XP as long as it gallops, stop pushing the issue.

 

boiled_elephant, you just gave me a (c) WTF moment...

I never, ever, EVER heard anyone from MS say that you CANNOT keep running XP if you allready have it. I totally understand MS for stopping XP sales... I mean, how many car manufacturers do you see selling last years type (brand new)?

And I was quite glad this thread came around. Finally a moment for all those that rise the ANTI-VISTA flag way up high to explain why. And tbh there are only a few who have a decent reason. No more 'I hate Vista cause... well, everyone says is bad'.

I totally agree that someone who isn't on the market doesn't upgrade to Vista for the sake of upgrading. But I don't understand why someone that is looking for a new OS clings to (the ancient in PC terms) XP.

I like Vista, and I know a lot of (PC literate) people who do to. Now shoot me right? (And this is coming from a person who allmost lives by the OSS spirit!)

 

This is my first post using Vista. Spent the afternoon moving the old (XP) system into the penultimate case and building the new box (Scythe Ninja is a bugger to work round but an ab fab sink) and the last few hours installing Vista and the essentials (AV and Firefox so far).

Pros: Nothing went wrong. No nasty messages. Too early to comment on performance, but I could drive it and find all the knobs and pedals.

Cons: The Vista disk partitioning (on a brand-new drive) didn't do what I wanted and expected. I created 3 partitions, in order of creation 80Gb (for Win), 60Gb (for Programs) 80Gb (for Data). For some reason they came out C (80), D (80), E (60) after formatting, so I spent an hour shrinking, extending, deleting, creating, formatting, with the built-in tool till I had what I wanted. Slow. Partition Magic is much easier, I wish I'd used it. (Maybe I could have just changed drive letters, but I thought some utilities run from boot CD, etc, might get confused). Other con is Vista should know that when I ask for 80Gb I dont mean 80,000Kb (78Gb) but that's what you get.

43 updates already? Took forever to install

On price I got Vista Home Premium OEM because it was only a fiver more expensive than a new copy of XP Home OEM. The old XP system will continue as a backup.

 

It's not just the hard drive indexing service. But Vista seems like it's much less of a "user experience" than XP was, particularly when you, the system administrator, still forfeit much control over what you deem safe activity to your supposedly much smarter operating system. But not everyone is comfortable with sacrificing administration responsibilities to their machine.

It's a question of who controls who.

 

At this point I can't see any advantage Vista has over XP... that is unless you need DX10 or lots of bling and whirlygigs on your desktop. I used 2k for years at home and XP at work. I went to Vista because I got CoD4 and needed XP atleast, so reluctantly I upgraded my 2k. After making it look more like 2k I don't see any benefits to it really functionally and I don't notice any speed differences on applications. I haven't had any hardware issues and only a couple little software glitches that were easily fixed.

My biggest gripe (so far) about Vista is the Start menu layout and the file search is ridiculously slow and not as capable as the xp/2k version. Thankfully I don't use the search too often!

 

I'm finding you can turn things off. HDIS was the first to go, followed by the Welcome Center. I Rule, OK.

 

Why won't I use Vista?

Because I'm happy with XP.

 

It does not support SolidWorks.