Living with Vista

http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2007/03/18/living_with_vista/1.html

 

Im using windows Vista and loving every min of it, its so stable compared to XP for me, the only problem i have is the logitech driver for my G15 keyboard, other than that all drivers are installed, and everything is running so so smooth.

Vista has landed in my rig, and its here to stay!

Sam

 

I find that it's a lot more tight on overclocking due to the new memory management. I find that my videos keep giving me a comm dll error. Which I have no idea about how to fix.

Business is shocking in terms of games support, I don't see why there has to be one version for every person on the planet. Far too much confusion.

 

Great article - we're gonna miss you once you've left Wil!

Do you mean in the office?

This is the weirdest feature of Vista - having it on the toolbar in My Computer makes no sense.
As for Windows Updates, I couldn't agree more - they pushed 8 to me yesterday afternoon as I was plodding along in Vista. Once they're installed it simply reminds you that a restart is needed - giving you the option of setting the time length between reminders there and then. No registry hacks here!

I've been running Vista Ultimate 64-bit (OEM) for about a month now and haven't looked back. I'm lucky in that I've had no issues with hardware/drivers and everything is functioning perfectly straight out of the box. I also find that Vista has a lot more functionality than XP, requiring only a handful of applications to be installed alongside it.

 

I have also moved from XP to vista on my gaming rig. After sorting out every bit of rogue hardware everything was up and working.
I managed to find some modded drivers to run my soundblaster live(only 2 speakers though) and even my very old USB 1.1 TV card had vista drivers. My system is no newer than 3 years old. The newest part is probably my 6800GT and I was very impressed that I managed to get everything working on vista.
Counter Strike Source seemed to work ok but the fps was a bit lower than I would like, to be honest I was on the limit in XP too.
my WoW folder was copied straight from the old XP hard drive to vista and ran is exactly the same configuration as it did on xp with no changes at all.
I dont care if microsoft "stole ideas" from osx or any other OS for that matter. I am never going to buy a mac or use a linux based machine as my main machine simply because my job involves supporting 100's of windows machines and I am training for an MCSE so whats the point in learning anything about another OS.

Conclusion is I like vista and once my new rig arrives next week, vista is the only thing that is going to be running it.

 

I tried Vista, sorted all the driver problems out, but didn't like it one bit. SO much so, I made the switch over to OSX and I'm loving it! Why didn't I do it sooner

 

I missed that bit in my original read through.

It is in the control panel, but it's called Programs and Features

 

See - very weird. If I recall correctly, it's named Add/Remove programs on the My Computer toolbar.

 

right so why are you using an OS with lower performance, stupud interface and reducaed functionality again?

 

Why is the functionality reduced? The article states that it has decent base functionality. The lower performance is to be expected - look at the launch of XP, it was far worse in terms of performance hits, bugs, security flaws etc.

 

Agreed. But I don't agree with your view on breadcrumbs, they are awesome. Period.
I like the interface too.

Expose is just not meant for Windows, it doesn't fit. We don't need expose because we actually have a taskbar that works not a useless dock.

EDIT: I made a screencast of some advanced features of Windows Search on Youtube somewhere. Have a search (the username will either be Ramble or my email address).

Moron. Apart from games the general performance is higher in Vista than it is in XP. So many aspects of the interface have been improved (live previews, breadcrumbs, search, etc.) and the functionality is way higher than in XP.

I only just installed XP on another partition (for games) and it was awful. Fetching drivers is a pain and the interface is stupid.
Anyway, for some reason it's become unstable so I can't actually use it now.

 

If they hadn't dropped WinFS, and it was as good as I was hoping, I'd buy this in a heartbeat, but now I don't really see why I should bother paying and going through the hassle of the activation crap. Probably the biggest turn off for me is the draconian activation process.

Not sure what to do now, I love gaming, so I need a windows PC really, but I really can't stand folders anymore.

 

It's not so hard is it?

Nine times out of ten, if XP becomes unstable it's due to incorrectly installing drivers or software by the user! I've been running XP for 2+ years without any problems whatsoever. Not even had a BSOD or an abnormal shutdown yet...

100% agree.

 

Am I missing something? The activation process was a cinch for me.

 

Whats with the complaining about activation , its about 3 clicks! OMG NOOO!!!

do you activate your Games when you buy it (enter key when it asks in the install process? Yes I guess you do, do you , if you play any online games, realise that it gets "activated" every time you play? checking keys for piracy etc...)

so draconian isn't really the right term .. protecting MS's intellectual property may be the right one to go for.

As for driver support, it has FAR more support than linux has right now (and probably will ever have) Not really sure about Mac support, but I would hedge my bets on more things being supported in Vista than in OSX.

Security :: the large thing about UAC I dont really get -- there has been a "run as.." box since NT4 and it worked, but I guess it brings the user account to the masses all in all a good thing.

IE7 + sandboxing ==> for the win to be honest.
PreFetch ==> also an awesome addition

WinFS may come in SP1/SP2 or in Fiji so here be hope for that

all in all I think Vista owns XP, and most if not all of linux for nearly everything, never really used a mac, but all i can remember from OSX is that to browse for files you scroll sideways which hurts :S

 

Yes, vista is so much better than Linux as a desktop for most people except Server applications. Nothing beats Linus for that imo.

Sure, vista is a step up from XP, it has the security that XP could only dream about, but that's it. Nothing more in vista is worth the upgrade for a games rig tbh.

All I know about OSX is that it beats vista hands down on everything except gaming.

 

I AGREE

My Mac is my main machine, the only thing I dont use my Mac for is Games and a Media Center.
The Vista Media Center is pretty good the only thing I'm not %100 happy about is Gaming on Vista, My hardware might get a performance hit since I Crank my settings on my Games and Vista uses a lot of the system.

 

Yeah a CD-key is fine, I would hardly call that activation anyway. Windows activation is OTT IMO, if I buy a piece of software that costs a few hundred quid, I want to be able to install it onto a replacement machine hassle free.

Also, the people who pirate vista would be the ones who wouldn't buy it in the first place. MS havn't lost anything there, infact, they gain something, market dominance, I can guarantee you that MS would rather have a few % of the PC market using a pirated copy of vista than have those people go over to the competition. My activation of XP was anything but smooth, and I'd rather not have to experience that again, then upgrade my computer, only to find out I'm required to get a new copy.

I'm not denying Vista is better than XP (aside from a few driver problems that arn't really MS' fault), but right now, I don't see why I would pay the few hundred quid asking price for it when it's not really anything special compared to XP, if they had made a big advancement like WinFS, then I'd snap it up, but right now, all I can see is an improved search (whoopee), DX10, and a resource hogging interface.

 

I made the plunge yesterday and finally got vista running on one of my computers, 8 hours later i found myself reinstalling XP, a waste of £120 (Ultimate Version).

The new features are not worth the downfall in performance, its so much more clumsy than XP, im sticking with XP for as long as possible. Imo Vista is useless, they have solved only some of the crucial problems in XP and made entire new ones with clumsy navigation etc.

 

I got vista and love it! I hit 2 snags though, I couldn't get deadAIM working so I just installed gaim. no big deal. But our printer from 2003 doesn't work and Lexmark's website says April 30th for when the next drivers come out. UGH! However I'm not going to blame that on Microsoft or give Vista a blackmark for other companies not having drivers out.