ok, give me the lowdown on features and things...you can hit the main points...

11/2/2006 11:14:24 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista#New_and_updated_features
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2007#New_features

11/2/2006 11:15:22 AM

I tried installing RC2 on my Dell, and it installed, but didn't have a sound or network driver.

11/2/2006 11:16:04 AM

Vista hates my Realtek onboard sound.

11/2/2006 11:18:58 AM

ok, i should use wikipedia more often...

anyone on here have a beta or something? how is it compared to xp...

11/2/2006 11:31:40 AM

you can download the beta directly from microsoft

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/preview.mspx

[Edited on November 2, 2006 at 11:36 AM. Reason : link]

11/2/2006 11:34:35 AM

The RC2 beta you'll have to get from torrent. MS Took the public link down and only distributed it to select MSDN subscribers.


UAC is going to be a pain in the cunt to get used to.


Joe posted the only link that MS is offering, and it's for RC1.

Quote :

"Windows Vista Customer Preview Program—RC1 Update "

As far as I know, there arent many feature updates to RC2, but the driver support and performance has increased. I dont have time for that research ATM. someone else can clarify.

[Edited on November 2, 2006 at 11:58 AM. Reason : kk]

11/2/2006 11:35:35 AM

.

[Edited on November 2, 2006 at 11:43 AM. Reason : Bah, beat me]

11/2/2006 11:42:42 AM

and yet i'll still run in classic windows mode

11/2/2006 12:03:05 PM

^ pretty much, yeah

11/2/2006 12:22:25 PM

↑↑

11/2/2006 12:27:25 PM

aha holy shit. i didn't realize that was rc1 i downloaded

11/2/2006 12:30:55 PM

im scared to download it and f*** up my pc, is it even worth it to those of you who have it?

11/2/2006 2:10:38 PM

I've got Windows Vista Ultimate RC2. The only thing I use it for is playing the free mahjong and chess games.

Areo is on full tilt and it's idling at 602 MB of RAM. If you have WindowsBlinds and a few DesktopX widgets then you've seen most of what the new look and feel has to offer. The only nice additions being the ability to mouse over minimized windows in the taskbar and getting a iconic view of the window contents. I'm sure we all know about the button similar to "Show Desktop" in the quicklaunch that tiles all open windows in a 3-D diagonal pattern. I'd also mention the iconic view of each window when alt tabbing but I'm pretty sure this was included in Win XP Plus/Power Toys some time ago.

There definitely isn't a reason to move over any time soon. I'll probably wait until the new releases of PC games start to require directX 10.

One more thing. It has a lot, and I mean a lot, of multimedia for the uneducated or new user. It has several audio files that try to guide the user through literally everything. I can't help but wonder how much disk space all of this takes up (my clean install takes up over 7Gig). It would be nice if they included an option to omit this feature in favor of retaining more disk space, but disk space is cheap right?

[Edited on November 2, 2006 at 2:34 PM. Reason : -]

11/2/2006 2:24:56 PM

^ shit who is going to build a vista system that has less than 100 GB

shit is getting cheap

11/2/2006 8:46:35 PM

something like nlite will be out within a year of vista's release...i don't know what i'd do without nlite (other than install xp to it's full retardity, i mean)

11/2/2006 8:49:09 PM

Quote :

"it's idling at 602 MB of RAM"

Now that's absolutely abnoxious. XP, with firefox, trillian, emule, thuderbiurd, and windows media connect running (along with some annoying audigy software) is only taking up about 580 of my 2GB right now...

Quote :

"but disk space is cheap right?"

Not if you have raptors (which I don't.) There's got to be some way to clean off some of that crap.

[Edited on November 2, 2006 at 8:51 PM. Reason : ]

11/2/2006 8:49:13 PM

^Well in all fairness about the 602MB of RAM idling...

1) This is a 2GB of RAM system. Windows has the tendency to eat more memory where it sees more memory. I haven't, and probably won't, be installing this on a system with less memory (or pulling some out of my current setup) to test that theory.

2) I'm running Aero on an integrated video card that grabs memory from RAM. That alone looks like it accounts for about 70 to 85 MB of memory usage.

I imagine the OS relies heavily on .Net. That probably accounts for the bloated memory usage as well. Either that or they hired the programmers that gave us the Catalyst Control Center.

These can be axed fairly easily:
58 MB of sample music
143 MB of sample recorded tv

There is also an ease of access feature you can enable where a narrator (uses Microsoft Anna to read text of window labels and buttons) reads aloud every minute detail of every mouse movement.

For the following window:


it reads:

Quote :

"Microsoft Narrator Window Focus on Voice Settings Button Contains: Narrator will read aloud what is on-screen as you navigate using the keyboard Main Narrator Settings Group Echo User's Keystroke 'checkbox is checked' Announce System Messages 'checkbox is checked' Announce Scroll Notifications 'checkbox is unchecked' Start Narrator Minimized 'checkbox is checked' Quick Help button Voice Settings button Exit button Application menu bar with three items"

It can be quite confusing/stupid when you are blazing through entries in the Start menu, but then again the feature is probably for people with disabilities. This feature also calls out each letter as you type and still has the same flaws as the Windows XP text-to-speech.

[Edited on November 3, 2006 at 7:47 AM. Reason : -]

11/3/2006 7:43:45 AM

I downloaded some of the Office 2007 beta (back when it was free to download) and I think that the new 'ribbon' interface is one of the best updates to the productivity suite since Office 97. The ribbon is nice to use.

I have not tried out Excel 2007, but I've extensively used PowerPoint 2007. They have refreshed all their graphics (for org charts, relationships, etc), and one-click photo effects which are actually pretty good (for being MS).

Overall, while I might not upgrade to Vista, Office 2007 is definitely intriguing.

11/3/2006 9:44:49 AM

I just installed Office 07...I like it a lot...it was almost 2 GB of HDD space to install and it takes some getting used to, but its pretty slick

1/11/2007 1:37:52 PM

i hate office 07 - uninstalled it and went back to 2003

1/11/2007 1:47:19 PM

has anyone installed Vista on a RAIDx0 setup? For some reason both hard drives show up as two separate partitions in vista setup rather than 1.

2/26/2007 2:08:31 PM

office 2007 is great, EXCEPT for the goddamned redesign. it's horrible, i have no idea where anything is. i don't need my office suite to look spaceage, i need to be able to do shit at work

2/26/2007 2:14:33 PM

i found it a lot more intuitive and i got tasks done quicker with the redesign, but to each their own.

2/26/2007 3:07:47 PM

thread on vista:
message_topic.aspx?topic=455796

but watch this not get locked because the title included office

i have vista & office 2007 and i absolutely love both... but i'm an early adopter, i don't mind change and i like learning new user interfaces if i think they are more intuitive. most people who dislike the vista and office UI changes are 'typically' people who like familiarity... if you hate relearning where things are than i'd say wait until you need to upgrade. i think both are great and are welcome changes. if you're interested in buying i'd say pull the trigger on office, but wait on vista til SP1 (rumored to be out later this year)... def. check out Crede's post (wiki site) for all the new features, there's too many to talk about for both since they are both major milestones.

[Edited on February 26, 2007 at 6:42 PM. Reason : .]

2/26/2007 6:42:30 PM

^

message_topic.aspx?topic=455796 was created on 1/14/2007
message_topic.aspx?topic=442337 (this thread) was created on 11/2/2006

If anything, the other should be deleted.

There are options to make Vista look and feel more like Windows XP/2000. I really don't see a reason to update Office every year if you are just using it for personal use. For me typing and printing a paper hasn't changed since Office '97. There have been a few minor updates in Power Point and excel in the XP version, but nothing I'd value at the cost of an upgrade.

[Edited on February 27, 2007 at 11:08 AM. Reason : link]

2/27/2007 11:07:19 AM

word is real cool now, looks like an apple interface heh

2/27/2007 12:19:51 PM

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45665026/?offset=10

Anyone know how to add the Application bar thingy on the bottom of the screen in Vista like in the screenshot?

3/14/2007 8:03:09 PM

http://www.rocketdock.com

3/14/2007 8:57:35 PM

Quote :

"word is real cool now, looks like an apple interface heh"

I wonder where they got that?

^^http://www.apple.com/macosx/

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 9:45 PM. Reason : ]

3/14/2007 9:32:04 PM

hah that rocketdock is a ripoff of the original objectdock. o well

3/14/2007 9:43:03 PM

dude there's lots of these clones, who cares where it's from

3/14/2007 10:06:53 PM