I think it's pretty great; but only if you do a clean install and update all of your drivers. XP has gotten to the point where it's just as stable as it can get, so right now it's not really imperative to upgrade. I really like the UI, but some of the DRM issues bother me. Like how I can't move files to or from my SD card because it's been formatted in my PS3 or video camera, I can only copy files from it. I can't format it in my computer because it's "copy-protected".
net-cat
Infernal Kitty
I personally am quite happy with my XP systems (Pro x64 and Tablet PC Edition,) and see little reason to upgrade at the current time. I know plenty of people who use Vista and are happy with it, though.
As with anything computer-related, your mileage may vary.
As for DRM, just don't download, buy or create DRM'd media. Vista (like XP) doesn't impose it DRM on non-DRM files. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just spreading FUD.
The only sticking point with DRM is the "no unsigned code in kernel mode" (drivers and such) policy that's present in the x64 edition. But, since you're not using the DRM anyway, you can just turn it off if you need an unsigned driver.
As for UAC, it's no different from Mac OS X or Ubuntu asking for your password when you try to make changes. The major difference is that applications written for Windows have been written to assume administrator access since for 22 years. Give it time and UAC will get less annoying. (Unix and Linux have always been multi-user environments that don't assume root. Mac OS X is a BSD Unix variant, so programs written for it don't assume root. Classic Mac applications are somewhat sand-boxed in Mac OS X, so they can't hurt the system. Much.)
Vista has only benefited me since it came out. As an XP x64 user, hardware that didn't previously have XP x64 drivers either now has them or the Vista x64 drivers can be modified to work. Of course, when x64 mal-ware starts appearing...
As with anything computer-related, your mileage may vary.
As for DRM, just don't download, buy or create DRM'd media. Vista (like XP) doesn't impose it DRM on non-DRM files. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just spreading FUD.
The only sticking point with DRM is the "no unsigned code in kernel mode" (drivers and such) policy that's present in the x64 edition. But, since you're not using the DRM anyway, you can just turn it off if you need an unsigned driver.
As for UAC, it's no different from Mac OS X or Ubuntu asking for your password when you try to make changes. The major difference is that applications written for Windows have been written to assume administrator access since for 22 years. Give it time and UAC will get less annoying. (Unix and Linux have always been multi-user environments that don't assume root. Mac OS X is a BSD Unix variant, so programs written for it don't assume root. Classic Mac applications are somewhat sand-boxed in Mac OS X, so they can't hurt the system. Much.)
Vista has only benefited me since it came out. As an XP x64 user, hardware that didn't previously have XP x64 drivers either now has them or the Vista x64 drivers can be modified to work. Of course, when x64 mal-ware starts appearing...
*laughs* It's a very overbearing OS.
My main trouble right now is the lack of drivers out there :/ My tablet has no pressure sensitivity right now. I bought my PC yesterday and it drives me bonkers already. it's SO SLOW, like others said, my 4 year old PC runs a lot faster than this brand new one.
I had to uninstall a ton of junk that came with it that I didn't need nor wanted. I had to disable the virus protection, because it was protecting so well that it took 5 minutes for a webpage to open x_x
I contacted tech support, they told me I should put more RAM into it... DO WHAT? Put new RAM in a PC I bought yesterday so I can run an OS I never wanted in the first ffin place? I tried to con them into sending me a restore disk with XP, but no such luck. They flat-out told me, that A. I either buy XP or B. I put in more RAM. Then they had the nerve to ask me if I'd like to go ahead and buy some RAM from them. -_-;
I hate Vista. I don't want Vista, but I couldn't find any PCs without it.
net-cat
Infernal Kitty
Neh. I just picked up the academic version of Vista Business from my school's bookstore. ($90 instead of $300...) It was the 32-bit version, but I wanted the 64-bit version. Three calls to Microsoft and an hour later, I find that the key will work fine on the 64-bit version and that I just need to order (i/e: BitTorrent) the 64-bit disc.
Do they intentionally make their licensing terms incomprehensible?
(@ chaotikat: I know it's too late now, but both Dell and Gateway still sell systems with XP. Dell sells them through their website and Gateway sells them over the phone. Also, if you have Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, you have downgrade rights for XP Pro.)
Do they intentionally make their licensing terms incomprehensible?
(@ chaotikat: I know it's too late now, but both Dell and Gateway still sell systems with XP. Dell sells them through their website and Gateway sells them over the phone. Also, if you have Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, you have downgrade rights for XP Pro.)
TeeGee said:
net-cat said:
Funny, Gateway owns Emachines (they made my PC). Eh, it's a fine PC really, cheap as hell ($290, before tax, after rebates) can't complain about that! Putting more RAM in shouldn't prove to be too pricey.
I recall me cussing up a storm about XP, so surely I'll get used to Vista in time. The lack of drivers is sucky though.
net-cat said:
I know, they're cheap pieces of crap with below-standard parts
Perfect when you're broke.
In my previous Emachines I replaced the power supply, the fans, RAM, video card etc. etc. They're a cheap PC that does what it needs to do, and you can slowly put in new stuff. I'm not brave nor skilled enough to build something from scratch, but damn am I good at Frankensteining things.
Besides, I've had less trouble with this one, than with Compaqs, HPs etc. etc.
net-cat
Infernal Kitty
Heh. I work in a computer shop. Here's what we see in the order of how much we see them for hardware problems.
Dell (because freaking everyone has them)
Emachines
Our cheap-o brand (because we're the official tech support for them)
Compaq
HP
*big gap*
Sony
Gateway
Our expensive brand
90% of the Emachines we get are "Won't power on" and the diagnosis is "Power supply died and took the motherboard with it."
Dell (because freaking everyone has them)
Emachines
Our cheap-o brand (because we're the official tech support for them)
Compaq
HP
*big gap*
Sony
Gateway
Our expensive brand
90% of the Emachines we get are "Won't power on" and the diagnosis is "Power supply died and took the motherboard with it."
The Sonic God
Member
But... but... Vista is so shiny... and has features from Mac OS X.
net-cat
Infernal Kitty
If it's just widgets and stuff you want, then you can get DesktopX for windows XP. That way, you get all the spangly pointless widgets without having to upgrade if you don't want to.
I've been using Vista now since late Feb early March and one posative thing I have to say about it so far is I haven't experienced "WinRot" yet, which killed my XP system as soon as a month after use.  Another thing is I can go weeks without ever having to reboot whereas with XP within maybe a week I had to reboot.  It keeps chugging along!
Another cool thing, no more defrag.  Rather, it works in the background when you're not awake.  I know a lot of geeks and pro users like the little dialouge with the percentage and graph and whatnot.  I was in strong disagreement with it's exclusion when MS's plans were revealed as well, but now that I'm using Vista it's not a big issue.  I never even felt I had to defrag because my drives keep running smoothly. Â
The problems I have with Vista is the inconsistancy in the UI, like the misuse of fonts (which can be fixed) or *ahem* the add font dialouge (salt, meet wound). Â
Plus, while backup is better than no backup, Vista's backup kinda sucks.  Once your hard drive is full, you're fukked.  I had to erase the whole damn thing and start over.  And unlike say, Leopard, it won't replace older files or even give you options it just spits an error at you saying the disk is full.  It doesn't even give you a wizard, that's so unlike Microsoft to not offer a wizard at every available oppertunity!
Weird things sometimes happen, albeit small.  Flash has issues with Vista, sometimes I have to reinstall it.  As does iTunes (the UI doesn't refresh sometimes, so you gotta minimize and restore once in awhile), Media Player won't play DVD's (my biggest issue with Vista), my Wacom tablet sometimes will stop working... but the thing is that these are all third-party problems.  All but the Meida Player issue is addressed by third parties as their problems on their sites.
The Ultimate Extras so far have been anything but.  We're still using a preview of DreamScene, buggy at that.  I'm kinda miffed about that.  So far we've got a game of poker which I never play, BitLocker which I never use, and the aforementioned Dreamscene.  Bah.
Overall, Vista couldn't be better in the sense that it does its main functions well.  The problem I have is the new inclusions or lack thereof.  Like Backup, Movie Maker and DVD Maker are sad, sad little apps.  Photo Gallery is good if you don't own something like ACDSee already.  Media Center is worthless to me as I already own a DVR for my Dish, but it is damn nice, I'd say it gives even Apple a run for their money in UI design.  Performance wise, it's not as big a hog as some people think.  It's not sluggish, and I have a P4 Northwood chip.  Ram is fairly inexpensive, though it's on the rise nowadays to keep up with the pace of technology, I have 2 GB and it's fine but you could always use more.  To some this is a negative point, but technology is continually requiring more processing power as more and more things are done on the PC, and more things are handled on the OS. Â
So that's my long-overdue experience with Vista.  I'm happy with it, though if I could go back I'd probably get the Home Premium version as Ultimate, even though I paid for OEM, isn't all that Ultimate.  Once I see what Vienna is going to be like, I'll decide if or not I'm going to upgrade my PC and stay MS or kill my savings account, foreclose my house and live in my car for a new Mac.  For all the new stuff and things I do like about it I'm just not as happy with Vista as I thought I would be.
My Specs:
P4 3GHz Northwood
Gigabyte 8IK1100 Mobo
Corsair CMX512-3200C2 x4
150GB WD Raptor (Windows)
160GB Seagate 7200.7 (Media)
250GB LaCie d2 External Drive (Backup)
ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB
Samsung 910T 19" Display
Another cool thing, no more defrag.  Rather, it works in the background when you're not awake.  I know a lot of geeks and pro users like the little dialouge with the percentage and graph and whatnot.  I was in strong disagreement with it's exclusion when MS's plans were revealed as well, but now that I'm using Vista it's not a big issue.  I never even felt I had to defrag because my drives keep running smoothly. Â
The problems I have with Vista is the inconsistancy in the UI, like the misuse of fonts (which can be fixed) or *ahem* the add font dialouge (salt, meet wound). Â
Plus, while backup is better than no backup, Vista's backup kinda sucks.  Once your hard drive is full, you're fukked.  I had to erase the whole damn thing and start over.  And unlike say, Leopard, it won't replace older files or even give you options it just spits an error at you saying the disk is full.  It doesn't even give you a wizard, that's so unlike Microsoft to not offer a wizard at every available oppertunity!
Weird things sometimes happen, albeit small.  Flash has issues with Vista, sometimes I have to reinstall it.  As does iTunes (the UI doesn't refresh sometimes, so you gotta minimize and restore once in awhile), Media Player won't play DVD's (my biggest issue with Vista), my Wacom tablet sometimes will stop working... but the thing is that these are all third-party problems.  All but the Meida Player issue is addressed by third parties as their problems on their sites.
The Ultimate Extras so far have been anything but.  We're still using a preview of DreamScene, buggy at that.  I'm kinda miffed about that.  So far we've got a game of poker which I never play, BitLocker which I never use, and the aforementioned Dreamscene.  Bah.
Overall, Vista couldn't be better in the sense that it does its main functions well.  The problem I have is the new inclusions or lack thereof.  Like Backup, Movie Maker and DVD Maker are sad, sad little apps.  Photo Gallery is good if you don't own something like ACDSee already.  Media Center is worthless to me as I already own a DVR for my Dish, but it is damn nice, I'd say it gives even Apple a run for their money in UI design.  Performance wise, it's not as big a hog as some people think.  It's not sluggish, and I have a P4 Northwood chip.  Ram is fairly inexpensive, though it's on the rise nowadays to keep up with the pace of technology, I have 2 GB and it's fine but you could always use more.  To some this is a negative point, but technology is continually requiring more processing power as more and more things are done on the PC, and more things are handled on the OS. Â
So that's my long-overdue experience with Vista.  I'm happy with it, though if I could go back I'd probably get the Home Premium version as Ultimate, even though I paid for OEM, isn't all that Ultimate.  Once I see what Vienna is going to be like, I'll decide if or not I'm going to upgrade my PC and stay MS or kill my savings account, foreclose my house and live in my car for a new Mac.  For all the new stuff and things I do like about it I'm just not as happy with Vista as I thought I would be.
My Specs:
P4 3GHz Northwood
Gigabyte 8IK1100 Mobo
Corsair CMX512-3200C2 x4
150GB WD Raptor (Windows)
160GB Seagate 7200.7 (Media)
250GB LaCie d2 External Drive (Backup)
ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB
Samsung 910T 19" Display
Rhainor
Rawr.
Aikon said:
iTunes is an Apple product. MS doesn't *want* it to work right, with good reason.
Aikon said:
Windows Media Player has always needed an extra DVD decoder to be installed before it would play DVDs. If I uninstall PowerDVD from my WinXP partition, WMP can't play DVDs any more.
Rhainor said:
I'd be surprised if that's true. I know they've done some anti-competitive things in the past, but MS really does want even compteitor's products to work well on their OS. If they don't, folks get angry, and start looking for alternatives.
I know this is true, because there's a surprising number of application-specific hacks written into Windows XP to support poorly-written older software that isn't supported by the folks who wrote it anymore. Of course, all these hacks are a big part of why Windows is so bloated, but that's another topic entirely.
net-cat
Infernal Kitty
I installed Vista today.
It's not too bad. Much better than the betas.
One thing I did find funny was that my scanner drivers didn't work. I've got a Canon CanoScan LiDE 25. It's supposed to be Vista-compatible. Part of being able to claim Vista compatibility is having x64 drivers. Canon released Vista x64 drivers, and said that they wouldn't work on XP x64. However, you can force the driver to install in XP x64, and it works fine. However, the driver doesn't work at all in Vista x64. (And that's actually going to keep me using XP for a while. Not to mention that it's going to be just as much of a pain in the ass to format and reinstall all my programs in Vista as it would be in XP.)
It's not too bad. Much better than the betas.
One thing I did find funny was that my scanner drivers didn't work. I've got a Canon CanoScan LiDE 25. It's supposed to be Vista-compatible. Part of being able to claim Vista compatibility is having x64 drivers. Canon released Vista x64 drivers, and said that they wouldn't work on XP x64. However, you can force the driver to install in XP x64, and it works fine. However, the driver doesn't work at all in Vista x64. (And that's actually going to keep me using XP for a while. Not to mention that it's going to be just as much of a pain in the ass to format and reinstall all my programs in Vista as it would be in XP.)
Rhainor
Rawr.
DuncanFox said:
Okay, so they *kinda* do, but iTunes being a competitor's product/service, it's not at the top of their bug-fixing priority list.
net-cat said:
Since when? I've seen way more copies of 32-bit Vista out there than I have 64-bit Vista. My own Vista partition is 32-bit. It only has to work with one version of the OS to claim compatibility with that OS.
And, it should be noted that since the Vista kernel is different from the XP kernel, most XP drivers won't work with Vista. If you find one that does, count yourself lucky.
net-cat said:
Drviers are a touchy subject with Vista. Vendors aren't likely to upgrade their drivers for Vista if the product is old, to boost sales of new equipment. I have a Canon Powershot G3 that isn't compatible with vista, I had to buy a card reader to import the pictures. I got lucky in this case.
My Scanner, an HP Scanjet 4600 (POS that it is) works well, even though I get an error during installation. I'll never by consumer HP products ever again. They install so much crud, and worst of all they made it so you can't remove it, AT ALL. I got an HP-Share to Web folder on my desktop that I can't delete, no matter how far I elevate permissions. FU HP. (/rant)
My HP Printer (920C) has all but the most most basic Vista drivers. It's older though. That's one of those things I wasn't expecting to do, because traditionally, MS has done a good job with backwards compatability (considering). But, if you're going to move forward, you've got to upgrade your equipment eventually. Apple drops compatability with every point release of OS X :twisted:. I just hate having to buy a new printer or scanner or whatever just because a vendor decides to not update their drivers.
net-cat
Infernal Kitty
Since at least December 22, 2006. According to the latest revision (3.09) of the Windows Logo Program Requirements. In order to get an official "Designed for Vista" logo, your hardware must have driver support for both the x86 and x64 versions of Vista.Rhainor said:
Actually, that's not entirely true. While the Vista kernel is significantly different from XP x86's kernel, Microsoft has put a lot of development into making a compatibility layer. XP drivers that pass WHQL will, in general, work in Vista x86 if you extract them from their installation packages and install them manually. (I had to do this for the RAID controller in my old computer back in the days of Beta.)Rhainor said:
Fortunately for me, my scanner isn't terribly old. Canon made drivers were meant for Vista x64, but didn't work in Vista x64. They worked fine in XP x64, though.Aikon said:
I can't speak to the quality of HP's scanners, but I will agree with the "too much crud" notion. Whenever I get a business HP product, first thing I do is pitch the disc that comes with it. Then I go online and download the host-only drivers.Aikon said:
That's why I like Canon scanners, though. If you know where to look, you can get the WIA drivers. It integrates into the Windows Image Acquisition system, which can be used by any TWAIN compliant application. (GIMP or Photoshop, for example.) It's only a few megabytes and doesn't install any unnecessary background processes.
I'd also like to point out that I'm talking about XP x64. XP x64 and normal XP are completely different code bases. XP was forked from 2000. Server 2003 was forked from 2000, (mostly) separately from XP, and is very different from regular XP. XP x64 and all versions of Vista were forked from Server 2003. If you have a device and are having trouble getting the XP drivers to work in Vista, try the Server 2003 drivers, if they're available.
QFT.DragonKid said:
net-cat said:
If it worked under XP x64, did you try installing it under XP x64 compatibility mode in Vista? Quite a few apps will work with the correct compatibility mode selected during install, usually because half the time it is a permissions level error during the install on Vista... seems like just about all the Windows centric software companies got pretty lazy about running administrator level priveliges for any and everything.
fastturtle
New Member
First off: most problems with Vista (Dell/HP/Acer) can be easily resolved by doing a Nuke and Puke as I call it. Simply backup anything you need to keep and then wipe the drive clean. Dell at least provides you with a clean installation disk (didn't they?). Now the explantions come down to three questions:
1) What Anti-Virus is on the system
2) What Office Suite is Installed
3) What Graphics Suite is installed
If 1 Is Symantec or McAffee - Run away from the system in screaming horror. Both of them aint worth the time/effort of installing or trying to fix and have been known to accidently delete user data. Get either AVG free from Grisoft or better yet get a copy of Avast for free. Both of which are much faster then either Symantec/Norton McAffee products. I've never trusted McAffee after it couldn't spot a virus in an email that had been in the wild for over 2 years and I yet I recognized it.
2) Unless it's Office 2003 or 2007, it's not compatible. Another that works nicely is Open Office and it's a free download
3) Adobe CS2/3 are currently having problems with Vista. Seems they like to loose images
You did state it's a laptop and the first thing I'd recomend if you can afford it is to install 2 gigs of memory. Vista Absolutely needs memory and 2 gigs is only the beginning.
The complaint about it taking 3 minutes to shut down, remember you're dealing with a 4200 rpm laptop drive. Cheap and slower the molasses in Anchorage during the winter. So yes Vista will take a while to shut down but 3 minutes? A bit to long.
Once again, plan on doing a full wipe and reinstall but have all of the hardware drivers downloaded from Dell onto a flash drive before you begin. Then it's time to backup the system and completely wipe the drive then do a clean installation. Then you should see a stable system after getting rid of all the damn third party garbage pre-loaded by Dell onto any non-corporate system.
1) What Anti-Virus is on the system
2) What Office Suite is Installed
3) What Graphics Suite is installed
If 1 Is Symantec or McAffee - Run away from the system in screaming horror. Both of them aint worth the time/effort of installing or trying to fix and have been known to accidently delete user data. Get either AVG free from Grisoft or better yet get a copy of Avast for free. Both of which are much faster then either Symantec/Norton McAffee products. I've never trusted McAffee after it couldn't spot a virus in an email that had been in the wild for over 2 years and I yet I recognized it.
2) Unless it's Office 2003 or 2007, it's not compatible. Another that works nicely is Open Office and it's a free download
3) Adobe CS2/3 are currently having problems with Vista. Seems they like to loose images
You did state it's a laptop and the first thing I'd recomend if you can afford it is to install 2 gigs of memory. Vista Absolutely needs memory and 2 gigs is only the beginning.
The complaint about it taking 3 minutes to shut down, remember you're dealing with a 4200 rpm laptop drive. Cheap and slower the molasses in Anchorage during the winter. So yes Vista will take a while to shut down but 3 minutes? A bit to long.
Once again, plan on doing a full wipe and reinstall but have all of the hardware drivers downloaded from Dell onto a flash drive before you begin. Then it's time to backup the system and completely wipe the drive then do a clean installation. Then you should see a stable system after getting rid of all the damn third party garbage pre-loaded by Dell onto any non-corporate system.